When the Bladen Journal put out a call for local organizations to plan and carry out a project that would benefit the community as part of USA Weekend’s annual Make A Difference Day, we knew one of two things would happen: Either we would be inundated with projects, making it difficult to decide which one(s) to cover, or we would get none.

Thankfully, neither happened.

As far back as we can tell, there has never been any involvement in the nationwide Make A Difference Day effort by Bladen County. The reason, we have concluded, is because few people even knew that USA Weekend had been sponsoring such an event for the past 19 years. That’s why the Bladen Journal decided to tell you about it and see what happened.

What happened was that two groups stepped up in a big way and planned projects that would benefit areas of the community in a positive way. You can read about those projects in stories on Page 1A by Editor W. Curt Vincent and Staff Writer Jenny Hayes-Carroll.

We want to take this time to applaud both Clarkton School of Discovery and the children from the Lewis Village Housing Complex. Each took the time to plan special projects that reached out into their community and made it a better place. Not only that, each of those groups taught valuable lifelong lessons to the children who participated in the projects — lessons they will carry with them and put to use in a variety of ways.

These two groups — along with the projects by the Bladen Journal of collecting and giving away new and used books to the public, as well as collecting school supplies for the Bladen County Schools Foundation — helped us to count this Make A Difference Day as a success.

It also gives us the opportunity to tell you that every day can be a day to make a difference is someone’s life and circumstances. There are people out there who struggle with a wide diversity of circumstances, and with the simple gesture of a smile or a helping hand in any number of ways, you can make their world a better place ... even if only for a moment.

These heartfelt gestures are what will help make this a better place.

We hope you’ll find ways to make all of your days a Make A Difference Day.