Sometimes one person can make a difference, in a big way. I recall listening on NPR to the story of one individual that went to Africa and visited a village that had a high infant mortality rate. The reason was quite simply lack of clean drinking water. The villagers would need to walk a good distance to get water from a river, which was polluted from upstream activities. So he got in touch with a drilling company and asked how much it would cost to drill a well where the village was, as there was a source of clean water underground. It was about $10K for the drilling and well equipment. So he wrote a check. It affected the lives of 300 people and eliminated the infant mortality due to unsafe drinking water. He said he could have easily spent the $10K on a fancy entertainment system for himself, but what good is that when you can positively affect the lives of others instead.