Two months ago, my best friend pitched me his latest brainstorm. He wanted to build The World’s Largest Toilet Paper Pyramid, and he wanted to do it for charity. The full pitch, build the pyramid during a four hour music festival held on our village’s Main Street, then tear it down and donate it to the local shelters.

I shook my head, another crazy idea, I thought. You should know, this is nothing out of the ordinary for my friend. I first encountered him when he was offering “The Blessing of The Stuffed Animals.” He is known for creative problem solving and his ideas are wildly successful repeatedly garnering attention on a national level. In fact, he’s been collecting toilet paper for the benefit of Long Island Against Domestic Violence for at least five years.

This year, my friend didn’t do it alone. He formed a coalition. Partnering with the local veteran’s organizations, two chambers of commerce and LIADV, the effort expanded and became known as Operation TP Pyramid.

For two months, local houses of worship, businesses, veterans groups, Girl Scout troops and private citizens publicized and collected toward our effort to build, The World’s Largest Toilet Paper Pyramid and donate the proceeds to charity.

Why do all this? Because in New York State toilet paper is considered a “luxury” item. Yes, that’s right. A luxury item. As such, requests for toilet paper, and a few other things like feminine hygiene products, cannot be included in any grant requests or subsidized by state funding. This means our local domestic violence shelters, our veterans shelters and our homeless shelters must rely on private donations for these essentials.

In the end we did not build The World’s Largest Toilet Paper Pyramid. We ran out of time!

What we built was community. This effort crossed all ethnic, religious and socio-economic boundaries as we were reminded of the mundane blessing of TP in our every day lives.

In a time when many of us are turning away from the news and asking how we can change the world for the better, my suggestion is try to build The World’s Largest Toilet Paper Pyramid for charity. They say, “Charity begins at home.” This combined effort had a place for all of us. The very young, the teens, the millennials, the Gen X’s and Gen Y’s, the Baby Boomers and some members of “The Greatest Generation”, all working together to contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

The open-hearted people who donated spontaneously on the street during the music festival, the couple that drove fifty miles just to donate rolls of toilet paper, the lady who flew in from Las Vegas to give support, the photographer who donated his evening to do a time-lapse video, the reporters who gave it free space in the newspaper and online, and the party people we pulled off the street to help carry the dismantled pyramid to the trucks in order for the TP to be delivered, were all grateful to be able to give back.

These are the people in my neighborhood. Together we are changing lives.

We may not have built The World’s Largest Toilet Paper Pyramid yet our grass roots effort collected over 15,000 rolls that have been repackaged and parceled out to various shelters in our area. It’s enough to keep each of shelter supplied for a year.

When we think of changing the world we often think on a global level then feel small and ineffective by comparison. The truth is our best and most lasting efforts can be made through simple activities at home. Our villagers won’t soon forget how taking strong, peaceful steps to change a law they think is wrong could be filled with generosity and fun.

I can’t wait to find out what my friend’s next idea is!

“It takes a village to raise a pyramid,” said the Rev. Dwight Lee Wolter, pastor of the Congregational Church. -from UCC.org