SIMPLE QUESTION:
WHAT. . .uhhhh, WHO GIVES YOU HOPE
THEY SAY:
That watching inspirational films or short clips
goes a long way in settling and grounding us
especially if
in some way
WE KNOW
the person in the story
or if we dare flip through the pages of our own personal biographies
WE ARE THE
H O P E
THE MORAL:
WHEN YOU CAN’T FIND HOPE–BE IT
WHEN THE TRICK IS A TREAT
H A P P Y
H A L L O W E E N
Here’s a
T R I C K
THAT’S ALWAYS MUCH MORE
THAN AN ONGOING
T R E A T
Milton Hershey knew what it felt like to fail. . .
Before he became the “Chocolate King,” he’d failed spectacularly—twice. His first candy business in Philadelphia went bankrupt. His second attempt in New York collapsed too. At 30 years old, he was broke, in debt, and living back with his parents in rural Pennsylvania.
Most people would have quit. Milton tried again.
By 1900, he’d finally succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The Hershey Chocolate Company was making him millions. He’d built an entire town—Hershey, Pennsylvania—around his factory, complete with homes, parks, and trolley lines for his workers. He married Catherine “Kitty” Sweeney, the love of his life, and they built a mansion overlooking his chocolate empire.
They had everything. Except the one thing they wanted most: children.
Kitty couldn’t have biological children. In an era before adoption was common among wealthy families, the Hersheys faced a choice: they could live out their lives in comfort, or they could do something radical.
In 1909, they chose radical.
Milton and Kitty founded the Hershey Industrial School—a boarding school for orphaned boys who had nowhere else to go. Not a charity that sent monthly checks. Not a foundation with their names on a building. A real home where children without families could live, learn, and build futures.
The school started with just four boys. Milton and Kitty personally interviewed each one, making sure they felt wanted, not pitied. The boys lived in homesteads with house parents, attended classes, learned trades, and—crucially—were treated with dignity and love.
Kitty poured herself into the school, visiting constantly, learning the boys’ names, asking about their dreams. She saw them not as charity cases but as the children she’d never have.
When Kitty died suddenly in 1915 at just 42 years old, Milton was devastated. Friends assumed he’d abandon the school project—it had been their dream together, and now she was gone.
Instead, he doubled down.
In 1918, Milton Hershey made a decision that shocked the business world: he transferred the majority ownership of the Hershey Chocolate Company—valued at $60 million at the time—into a trust for the school.
Not a portion of his wealth. Not his personal fortune. The entire company.
Every Hershey bar sold would now fund the education of orphaned children. Every Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, every Hershey’s Kiss—all of it feeding into a trust that would care for children long after Milton was gone.
Business associates thought he’d lost his mind. “What if the school fails?” they asked. “What if the company struggles?”
Milton’s response was simple: “If I wanted to build monuments to myself, I would have done it already. I want to build futures for kids who have none.”
He expanded the school, building more homesteads, hiring more teachers, admitting more students. Boys who’d been living in orphanages or on the streets now had warm beds, three meals a day, education, healthcare, and a genuine chance at life.
When Milton Hershey died in 1945 at age 88, he’d given away virtually his entire fortune. He died modestly, in a small apartment in the Hershey Hotel, surrounded by photos of the children his school had helped.
But here’s what makes this story extraordinary: it didn’t end with his death. It got bigger.
Today—79 years after Milton died—the Milton Hershey School serves over 2,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Every single one attends completely free. No tuition. No fees.
The school provides:
Housing in family-style homes with house parents
All meals, clothing, and school supplies
Medical and dental care
College prep and vocational training
Extracurricular activities and athletics
Career counseling and college scholarships
And the Hershey Trust? It now manages over $17 billion in assets, making it one of the wealthiest educational institutions in America. Every year, millions of chocolate bars fund thousands of childhoods.
The school has evolved too. It’s no longer just for orphaned boys—it serves students from low-income families, single-parent homes, and challenging circumstances. Boys and girls. All races and backgrounds. Any child who needs a chance gets one.
Over 11,000 alumni have graduated since 1909. Doctors, teachers, business owners, military officers, artists, engineers—children who started with nothing, given everything they needed to build something.
Because one man remembered what it felt like to fail. And when he succeeded, he didn’t ask, “How much can I keep?” He asked, “How many lives can I change?”
Milton Hershey never had biological children. But he’s a father to thousands. And every time someone opens a Hershey bar, they’re participating in a century-long act of generosity that shows no signs of stopping.
There’s a statue of Milton Hershey on the school campus. He’s not depicted as a wealthy industrialist in a suit. He’s shown kneeling beside a young boy, eye to eye, hand on the child’s shoulder.
That’s how he saw them. Not as charity cases or tax deductions or PR opportunities. As his children. The ones he and Kitty never had biologically, but loved just the same.
The chocolate empire is still massive. The Hershey’s brand is known worldwide. But Milton Hershey’s real legacy isn’t candy—it’s the thousands of children who grew up knowing that someone they never met believed they deserved a chance.
Most billionaires leave their money to children who’ll inherit comfort. Milton Hershey left his entire company to children who’d inherit nothing—and gave them everything instead.
That’s not just philanthropy. That’s love turned into institution. That’s grief transformed into hope. That’s one couple’s dream of parenthood becoming thousands of childhoods worth living.
Every Hershey bar is sweet. But the story behind it? That’s even sweeter.
THAT’S
an awesome
TRICK
THAT’S ALWAYS MUCH MORE
THAN AN ONGOING
T R E A T
NO MASKS NECESSARY
THE SHADOW OF HALLOWEEN EVE, EVE
It’s an annual BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS that casts a large shadow on a lot of pocketbooks and wallets and there’s no hint of it ever stopping on this
HALLOWEEN EVE, EVE
where things go bump in the night
and crash, boom, bam during the day
and the quickly falling shadows. . .
It’s amazing how we stand in our own shadow
and wonder loudly why it is so dark . . . .
THE SHADOW
I feared the most was
the one that could
hurt me the least
which made me fear it
all the more
The sound
The smell
The feel of skin crawling
hair raising on the back of my neck
itchingly
All SCREAMING
All YELLING
ABORT
BEWARE
R U N
All
just a shadow
caused something a Light
created but never clarified
An Illusion
of what could harm me
but never will
N O W
that’s a Treat any Tricky Shadow can appreciate. . .
ALL-WAYS A SEASON
In this era, where a lot of people are becoming more and more indifferent towards one another, kindness is coming at an expensive price. It is not often that you see people showing kindness towards others. BUT. . .I found this video recently where there was a prepared set of different videos to prove that wrong. Throughout the video, you can watch Santa providing warm clothes to homeless people or older woman praising stranger for doing cool tricks with skateboard and many others. As always I hope this afflicts the Caring Catalyst in you that by merely watching the video, you will realize that kindness in humanity hasn’t been lost completely and there are still people out there ready to show acts of kindness not only to their close ones, but also to any random strangers and make them emotional or even cry by their acts of kindness. THAT it’ll inspire you to bring a special warmth to Another’s CHILL. . .Enjoy watching the video. . .
AND REMEMBER:
JUST A MOMENT: HOPE BLOOMS IN EVERY SEASON
Shortly after I created this YouTube video I was attacked by the recent poem of one of my favorite poets, James Crews who just happened to post the following:
Let Hope Stay
Even as October wind tugged
at the bundles in my arms, sending
the last yellow leaves tumbling down
into my face and hair, I gathered up
the stalks of black-eyed Susans
cut back from the fading garden,
and after tossing them on the brush pile,
felt a few loose seeds clinging
to my finger, impossibly tiny and
easily swept away. Aren’t our hopes
like that, hoping to spread and grow,
becoming full-blown volunteers
at the edges of our lives, unlikely
blooms that multiply and come back,
giving us daily beauty in exchange
for letting them stay?
I was helping my husband Brad gather the stalks of butterfly bushes and black-eyed Susans he had just cut back from the garden, and as I carried bundle after bundle to the brush pile, the wind blew wildly, intent on tugging the last of the yellow leaves from the trees. When I looked down at my hand after my last trip, I found a few seeds still clinging to the skin, of one finger. I was astonished by how small they were. Volunteers from the perennial garden pop up everywhere in our yard, and on the margins of the woods that surround our house, tenacious and resilient—sunflowers, echinacea, and Joe Pye weed willing to try sprouting up almost anywhere. I always argue for keeping them, loving the abandon with which some plants spread. But I forget that they begin from something as humble and tiny as a splinter, which somehow contains everything they need to reach full blossom. As Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, has written: “Gardens start with seeds. Seeds are tiny and look like nothing much. And yet, it is from seeds that we get blooms and from blooms that we get hope.” It is not overly dramatic to say that my hope is restored each day by time spent in nature, and by small actions taken on behalf of others and myself. I don’t discount the hopelessness so many of us might feel right now, or suggest that it is easy or even simple to find again. Yet, a walk in the woods or hour of yardwork reorganizes my anxious heart-mind, allowing certain worries to fall away like useless husks as soon as I can lay down my phone and shut off the news for an hour or two. Likewise washing the car, sweeping the steps, vacuuming the carpets and gathering up all of that dust. A phone call or lunch with a friend, or an email thanking a colleague for some kind thing they did can all repair my beleaguered spirit, and plant the seeds that will help me do the same again tomorrow.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Begin with the phrase, “Let hope stay,” and see where the writing leads you. You might reflect on those times in daily life when you feel most hopeful, when the despair seems to fall away, and the seeds of a deeper faith are revealed.
WHICH INSPIRED THIS:
THERE
Among mulchings
there is something that seeks the
Seeing Eye
It’s Color
snaps neurons to believe
THERE
is always a Somethingness of More
Even
Especially in Death
and though
we often Feel
crinkly crumbled
THERE
shows us we are always
Becoming
a Furthermoreness
A Smoreness
that Toasts us
deliciously warm
So BLOOM ON. . .
H O P E
No matter what Season you are Feeling you’re in, right now. . .
NOT JUST A HAT
IN A WORLD WHERE WE ARE KNOWN AND OFTEN CHAMPIONED
FOR ALL OF THE HATS WE WEAR. . .
WHO WOULD THINK
IT’S NOT THE ONE’S WE WEAR
IT’S THE ONE’S WE DON’T WEAR
THAT JUST MAY MATTER
THE MOST. . . .
(Sometimes it all comes down to a hat. . .)
(My thanks to Amina Amdeen and Joseph Weidknecht, via StoryCorps.)
P O O F
POOF
She wore a diamond cross around her neck
He wore teak mala beads on his wrist
They wore Star of David’s
Some wore homemade bracelets
Most wore nothing
And when the old man
with a long robe and a wispy beard
spoke of his pain being our pain
WE didn’t understand
not even when we heard the
P O O F
before the sizzle of lightning
that struck where we were all sitting
ALL gone
before we could even think about
what it was to be
NO MORE
together
EVEN WHEN IT’S OVER. . .
THERE’S ALWAYS A WHISP OF SOMETHING THAT REMAINS. . .
N O
Q U E S T I O N
JUST A MOMENT: A SCRIBBLE IS AN UNRAVELIING STRAIGHT LINE
IT’S TRUE. . .
SOMETIMES OUR MONKEY MIND
MAKES US BELIEVE THAT
I T
IS ALL JUST ONE JUMBLED/TUMBLED UP MESS OF UNLEASHED THOUGHTS
SEEMINGLY UNCAGED AND RUNNING AMOK. . .
B U T
ESPECIALLY WHEN
S O REMEMBER
AND REMEMBER
A LINE IS JUST A LINE
NO MATTER WHERE IT BEGINS AND ENDS
OR HOW JUMBLED UP
IT EVER SEEMS. . .
BACKPACK HIDER
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A BACKPACK HIDER or a “I WILL MAKE SOMEONE’S LIFE BETTER WITHOUT THEM KNOWING ABOUG IT” kind of person. . dare you think the following story might change you just a tad. . . ?
I’m seventy-two. My name’s Harris. I used to be a high school history teacher in Ohio.
Now I hide backpacks.
Not in schools. Not in libraries. Not in food banks with lines around the block.
I leave them where kids disappear.
Behind the bleachers at the football field no one uses anymore.
Beside the boarded-up convenience store that still smells like spilled beer.
Under the bridge where spray-paint tags scream louder than adults ever do.
People ask why.
Because that’s where I used to find my students.
When my wife died, the classroom was the only place that kept me standing. Then the district closed my school. Budget cuts, they said. Fewer kids “worth saving.”
I drove around those first months like a ghost, parking in old lots, remembering faces. The boy who used to doodle in the margins. The girl who never took her hood off. The one kid who sat through three funerals in a semester and still turned in his essays.
I started noticing where kids hid when they had nowhere else to go.
And one night, I remembered something: the way my students’ backpacks told the whole story.
Worn zippers, missing straps, heavy with secrets no curriculum could carry.
So I bought a few used packs from Goodwill. Filled them with small, stubborn things.
A peanut butter sandwich wrapped tight.
A notebook and a Sharpie, with my scrawl inside: “Write it down. It matters.”
A pair of headphones and an old MP3 player loaded with free audiobooks and a playlist I called “Stay.”
A bag of trail mix. A bottle of water. A cheap phone card.
I didn’t put in Bibles or pamphlets. Didn’t tape motivational quotes to the straps.
Just pieces of normal life. Things that say: you still belong in this world.
The first time I left one, under the bleachers, my hands shook like I was committing a crime.
Next week, it was gone.
In its place? A folded piece of paper: “Thanks. I ate the sandwich. I’m still here.”
That was enough.
Week by week, I left more. And the backpacks started talking back.
A hair tie, left for the “next girl who forgets hers.”
A library card, taped to a thank-you note: “They reopened. Go check it out.”
A Polaroid of a dog with “He’s waiting at home. So am I.”
Last winter, a backpack showed up on my porch.
Inside: a sandwich. A notebook. A pair of socks.
And a letter.
It was from a boy who used to linger behind the gas station. He’d planned to join a gang that night. Said the backpack stopped him. Not because of the food, but because of one scribble in the notebook:
“You deserve to see another season.”
He wrote, “I chose life. I got a dishwashing job. Now I’m leaving backpacks too. With your list.”
I sat on the porch until my coffee went cold, holding that letter like it was oxygen.
Now my neighbors help. A retired nurse slips in first-aid kits. A baker leaves muffins with a note: “Still good. Still loved.” Kids from the neighborhood ride their bikes over and toss packs into the trunk of my car. Nobody signs their names. Nobody takes credit.
It isn’t politics. It isn’t charity drives or photo ops. It’s just one quiet thing in a loud, divided country.
The world talks about walls, borders, crime rates, and statistics.
But when you stand under a bridge at dusk, you don’t see numbers.
You see a kid trying not to cry where nobody’s watching.
That’s who the backpacks are for.
My grandson asked me once, “Grandpa, why don’t you just hand them out?”
I told him, “Because shame is loud. Kindness has to whisper. Sometimes people can only pick up help when no one’s looking.”
I don’t know how many backpacks I’ve left. I don’t keep count.
But I know this: in a world that makes so many feel disposable, something as small as trail mix and a Sharpie can turn a night around.
You don’t have to save the country.
You don’t have to fix politics.
You don’t even have to change a life.
Just leave something soft where a broken soul might land.
Sometimes all it takes is a backpack—forgotten by the world, but found by the one person who needed it most.
And that, I’ve learned, is still teaching.
Kind of makes you want to go out and buy some backpacks or. . .hide a few, huh?
You are somebody’s front porch to God.
You are someone’s doorway to mercy.
You are the world’s threshold to
kindness.
You are my entrance to letting go of regret.
No pressure, but…
Your life is a gateway to peace
for both strangers and friends alike.
Whether you realize it our not…
Empathy has chosen you to turn your
heart into a welcome mat for others.
This is purpose of your life…
To let your existence become a candlelit
veranda of hope for the rest of us to
gather on during the long night.
~ john roedel