As a user user of the internet for quite a while, I’ve joined many communities. Some I’ve stopped participating in, some disappeared, but they still made an impact on me nonetheless.

It’s been amazing to see communities evolve, with each person making contributions, no matter how small.

I was a member of a certain forum for years, and it amazed me to see how the people at the top, who were veterans, and made the majority of the posts, actually took the new users under their wings.

And people I had never met were always there to talk to, and happy for it as well.

Today I was amazed and touched by the sense of community of Reddit.com.

I logged on to find two posts on the front page that were nothing short of remarkable.

One detailed a young boy dying of cancer, and reached out to the community to try to make this the best Christmas for him, as he probably wouldn’t see this years, and the family was celebrating early for him.

The young boy wants nothing but Christmas cards, and considering the remarkable amount of people on this thread, its likely his mail will be backed up for a few weeks.

The amazing part is, they’re putting their time and energy into making someone else’s life better. Even if its just a Christmas card, it makes the world of difference to this little boy.

The other detailed how a redditer’s mother suffered from mouth cancer, and she created a recipe book for those who couldn’t eat normally. She passed before its completion, but the family finished it, and published it. All the books profits go to the Mouth Cancer Foundation.

Moments later my girlfriend called me to tell me she saw the same thing and it occurred to me: her cousin had suffered a similar cancer, and this book would be remarkably useful to her and her family.

The book found its way to her indirectly, through a group of amazing people and an amazing community.

On another section of the website, people with relationship problems get remarkable advice. Where else could someone find something like that? Where serious people give serious answers for people’s problems. People helping people from the kindness of their hearts.

What I’m trying to get across is the abilities of these communities are life changing for some people.

They show that even with all the bad things happening out there, there’s still a place where people care.

We need more of these communities.

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