Some years ago I took on a task in a southern county to work with people on public welfare. What I
wanted to do was to show that everybody has the capacity to be self sufficient and all we have to do is to activate（激励）them. I asked the country to pick up a group of people who were on public welfare,
people from different racial groups and different family groups. I would then see them as a group for three
hours every Friday. I also asked for a little petty cash to work with, as I needed it.
        The first thing I said after I shook hands with everybody was, “I’d like to know what your dreams
are.” Everyone looked at me as if I were kind of fool.
        One woman said to me, “I don’t know what you can do with dreams. The rats are eating up my
kids.”
        “Oh,” I said, “That’s terrible. No, of course, you are very much involved with the rats and your
kids. How can that be helped?”
        “Well, I could use a new screen door because there are holes in my screen door.” I asked, “Is there
anybody around here who know how to fix a screen door?”
        There was a man in the group and he said, “A long time ago I used to do things like that but now I
have a terribly bad back, but I’ll try.”
        I told him I had some money if he would go to the store and but some screening and go and fix the
lady’s screen door. “Do you think you can do that?”
        “Yes, I’ll try.”
        The next week, when the group was seated. I said to the woman, “Well, is your screen door fixed?”
        “Oh, yes.” she said.
        “Then we can start dreaming, can’t we?” she sort of smiled at me.
        I said to the man who did the work, “How do you feel?”
        He said, “Well, you know, it’s very funny thing. I’m beginning to feel a lot better.”
        That helped the group to begin to dream. These seemingly small successes allowed the group to see
that dreams were not insane. These small steps began to get people to see and feel that something really
could happen.
        Everyone found something. The man who put in the screen door became a handyman. In 12 weeks, I
had all those people off public welfare. I’ve not only done that once, I’ve done that in many times.