Making a Difference- The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

At this point, oil is still bleeding into the Gulf, endangering local life, people's livelihoods, and the balance of our world's ecology. I'm no expert in the how and why of it, you can Google to find out what made this happen. I'm also not interested in pointing fingers- there are plenty of official and unofficial fingers being pointed. As far as preventing it ever happening again, that's being studied by people far smarter than I am. I'm certainly not associated with any government. Ditto the large businesses. The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill is huge, out of control, and could become the largest oil spill in history. Comprehending the total damage done is beyond me. It's too big.

I want to do something, but feel overwhelmed.  I'm only one person- how can I change anything?  I have no vast resources to bring.  I see the pictures of oil-caked birds, suffocated fish, animals that didn't make this situation, can't comprehend it, but still have to live with it.  Can anything I do really make a difference?  This makes me feel small and helpless. 

I got stuck playing that broken record... while someone I know took steps to make a difference. My niece, Nichole. She tried to help, and found it difficult. There are numerous organizations online asking for help, but they're not... organized. Her approach was to filter out the wasted pages. Wade through all the excess material, and collect just the good stuff. Collate links to the actual sign-up pages for volunteering in diverse ways. Living in Jacksonville, Nichole focused on local programs. Using Facebook, she created a website called "My Local Effort".

Watch the video above - She explains it better than I can :^)

I can't begin to say how proud we all are of Nichole.  She's smart, energetic, easy to talk with, and fun to be around.  Committed, dedicated, and inspirational.  While I was stuck in the 'agitate' cycle, she researched, analyzed, and found a solution.  This hub is my tribute to her effort, and an attempt to help more people find her site.  Not selling anything, just trying to emulate somebody I admire.  Turns out, one person can make a difference after all.  Thanks, Nichole!

Now I can help.  You can help.  We can all do something...  My Local Effort makes it much easier to find out how. 

Not so local? No worries, below are some non-local links. You can find plenty of ways to help if you do a bit of searching, but these are good starting points (for those of us who don't live so close to the situation):

If you've read my other hubs, you know this isn't my usual style. This is short and direct.

I tried to totally turn off the advertising, but Hubpages won't publish the article unless I confirm that it meets Adsense standards. So I turned off my part of the ads and made this a non-commercial site. Hopefully there won't be any ads.

Nichole set the standard, I'm just trying to live up to it.

Regarding Comments:

I'm not looking to rile people up, or start arguments. If you leave a comment, please make it helpful, not hurtful. Let's try to do some good.

I'd love to hear more suggestions, and see how other people are making a difference!