As part of our GivingTuesday series, we asked our supporters to tell us why they became involved in END7, and what they’re doing to make a difference. To submit your story, email Alex at

I have always been interested in helping others and finding ways to give back to my community. But before this year, I had viewed global issues such as world poverty, lack of education and the spread of infectious disease as issues that were too big of a problem for someone as young and inexperienced as me to handle. However, joining the End7 at UT team has really changed my perspective as to what our potential as young adults really is.

Joining the End7 movement this year has helped me realize that you don’t have to have a PhD, or be the CEO of Microsoft in order to start making a difference. We all have the means right here and right now to make the world a better place and improve the quality of life for those living in it. I think the biggest concept that really hit home to me was the fact that treating a person for 7 NTDs for an entire year is as easy as donating just 50 cents! That’s probably less change than what most people have in their pockets right now!

So right now you’re probably thinking “Yeah, yeah, ok I got it. It only costs 50 cents to treat a person for a disease. That’s great.” But wait! If we can stop for a second and think about what that actually means, I think it might just blow your mind!

Let’s say that we were able to convince every student at the University of Texas to give just $1. That would raise approximately $50,000 or the price of saving 100,000 lives!! If you tried to meet every one of these people whose lives you affected at the rate of one person a day it would take you about 274 years to meet them all!!

The fact that such a small few can make such a large difference through this organization is what has inspired me to continuing fighting for this cause. As a student chapter of End7 at the University of Texas at Austin it is our goal to educate, raise money, and raise awareness in hopes that our efforts will bring happiness, health, and prosperity to those who need it most. I feel incredibly privileged to be able to join the fight against poverty and NTDs and I can’t wait to see the difference this organization will make in the upcoming years!