I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.'

Through their 'Making a Difference' franchise, I am excited to work with NBC News to continue to highlight stories of organizations and individuals who make their communities and our world healthier, more just and more humane.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

It's the curiosity that drives me. It's making a difference in the world that prevents me from ever giving up.

Understand and be confident that each of us can make a difference by caring and acting in small as well as big ways.

You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing.