Hal Donaldson, president and CEO of Convoy of Hope, recounts the life-changing experience of meeting Mother Teresa, and the advice that she offered him.Hear Hal's full interview in Episode 50 of Let's Talk Legacy.
as you enter into the workforce you just need to work hard be a good person treat people with integrity do the right thing and everything is going to take care of itself you don't need to go and you know become a climber and where you are harming people along your journey you just need to be a good person and everything will take care of itself and you know that advice really was extremely instrumental
You know, my story, Gary, is I became a writer in my 20s. I have a journalism degree. I began writing books in my 20s. One of those projects took me to Calcutta, India, where I interviewed Mother Teresa. And it was in the course of interviewing Mother Teresa that she just stops me and she just said, Hey, young man, what are you doing to help the poor and the suffering?
And I figured it was probably not a good idea to lie to Mother Teresa. So I told her the truth. I said, hey, I'm really not doing much of anything. And she said, everyone can do something. Just do the next kind of thing that God puts in front of you. And those words were haunting, but they dovetailed so well with what my grandmother had said. You know, just do the right thing.
Just do the kind thing, and everything is going to take care of itself. I came back after meeting Mother Teresa. I did what I call reconnaissance. I traveled to eight cities. I lived in the streets for three days and three nights. I went to Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, D.C., New York, major cities.
And I just walked the streets with a hidden tape recorder, interviewing drug addicts and gang members, prostitutes, runaways, and the homeless, and riding with the police on the midnight shift in each of those cities. That's really what changed the course of my life.
I saw pain and suffering on a scale I'd never seen before and came back and loaded up a pickup truck with $300 worth of groceries 30 years ago now. And that was the beginning of Convoy Hope.
Wow. It's one thing to know about it, but you're right. It's another thing to experience it. Yes. Yeah. Now you mentioned at the beginning that your parents didn't have life insurance, didn't have insurance. And this show is by no means even aware a life insurance company. Is it really pushing life insurance?
I've seen being in the business now, how having this protection has helped so many families and not burden the kids. number and the spouse when something happens. But what's been your experience with life insurance and what you've seen over the years with your employees and even the people that you serve?
Yeah. Well, first of all, the employees, we really emphasize the importance of it. We've lost some really dear people. During COVID, I lost six close friends in a They were all healthy, you know, and so it's very difficult to deal with that if you don't have adequate life insurance. So I know you didn't ask for a plug, but I'm a strong believer.
So I would say internationally and even in the U.S., I have a deep concern that there are many families that are month to month and they don't have insurance. Of any kind. And as someone that had to go through that in my teens, it's brutal. When you are not insured, it is brutal. And so I couldn't say more that from a convoy standpoint, our job is to get people healthy.
And once they get healthy and get a job, then insurance certainly is an important part of it. I'm a strong believer. And I get to see firsthand being in the business.
I'm a strong believer. Yeah. Yeah.