Paying it Forward

According to Wikipedia, the expression pay it forward is used to describe the concept of payback by doing something good for a third party instead of paying back the original creditor. It is the option of paying the debt forward to a third person instead of paying it back to the person you originally owed. Debt and payments can be monetary or good deeds.

Becca Kidwell carries cinder blocks to help build the gardens at Greenwood Lodge in Shreveport.

Well, North Dakota State University designed a Pay It Forward project and recently kicked it off with a group of students who used their Spring break to complete projects in Madison, Wisconsin, Indianapolis, Chicago, Memphis, and Shreveport, Louisiana.

In Shreveport, the 45 students constructed four raised bedding gardens at the Volunteers of America Greenwood Lodge Apartments. The gardens will allow the residents to plant trees, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in the 4-by-20 gardens.

Students remove the sod from the site in short order.

Greenwood Lodge was built to provide elderly persons and disabled persons with housing facilities and services specially designed to meet their physical, social and psychological needs and to promote their health, security, happiness, and usefulness in longer living. According to Brian Byrd, VOA Vice President, the gardens will improve the quality of life enjoyed by the residents. He says, "They will be getting in the earth, getting exercise, growing flowers, herbs and trees for their benefit."

Eighteen-year-old North Dakota State student Morgan Frederickson said, "It's great to have an impact on people." Landon Mondry, another student, said he enjoys doing something that makes a difference in people's lives. The 23-year-old said, "It makes them happy and feel like they're worth something."

North Dakota students find even hard work can be fun.

The garden project is one of three community growing stations locally sponsored by Shreveport Green and their coordinator, Millie Dillman who was very happy to have the students' help. "If we didn't have these kids to help, we wouldn't have been able to do this. They got done in four hours what it would have taken us a week to do."

Paying it forward appears to be a social movement that allows a payback for benefits received to go to persons who cannot accomplish all things on their own. In this way, the need to help one another can spread exponentially through society, creating a social movement with the goal of making the world a better place.

The residents at Greenwood Lodge can attest to the payoff that comes with paying it forward!