As I have said many times before in this column, we are all surrounded by Hidden Heroes but unfortunately we often tend not to notice them because we have become a society of "fixers". We tend to look for what's wrong and try to fix it, instead of focusing on what's right and building upon those strengths.

A wise person once said, "By focusing on what's right, we create the energy to fix what's wrong."

That's a key message in our Unleashing the Hero Within workshop which is a direct descendent of this column as is the school-based Hidden Heroes Project.

Another key message is that small things can make a big difference and thus we all can be, and frequently have been,Neighbourhood Heroes

It's our theory that when enough of us become committed to increasing the frequency of our small Neighbourhood Hero-like acts, we will, as our motto says, transform the world one person, one family, one community at a time.

Last week I did a series of Unleashing the Hero Within Workshops with students and adults in Bamfield, a community of only a few hundred souls.

The response was extraordinary.

They definitely got the message and a seed was planted with the students, teachers, and parents, a seed that I believe has the potential to make a significant positive difference in this already close-knit community.

Just minutes before I raced out of the school to catch the Lady Rose back to Port Alberni, I knew the students had got it.

I had just finished delivering a PowerPoint presentation on our Rotary Rural School Projects in Zimbabwe all of which started, I told them, when Comox Rotarian, Doug Ante, made a personal commitment to do a small thing, to gather a suitcase full of pens for the students in a rural school where not even the teachers had pens.

That commitment led to Doug visiting a number of Rotary clubs on Vancouver Island asking us to collect pens. Instead we raised $2.5 million worth of education supplies for more than 100 rural schools in Zimbabwe.

Small things, small commitments, definitely can make a big difference, I told them.

Hearing this story, eight of the students raced back to their classroom, grabbed pens they had been given the day before by an RCMP officer, and asked me to send them to the students in Zimbabwe. I'm sure the others would have too but I had left to catch the Lady Rose back to Port Alberni before they thought of it.

It will be interesting to see what comes of that student-to-student connection. Small things ...

The card the students gave me also showed that they got the message. Here are just two of their comments:

"I hadn't noticed before how many people do small things that make a big difference." Logan.

"Thanks Bill for coming. Maybe this will change my life." Casey.

The teachers definitely got the message too.

Steve Brown and Jill Irvine, the Grades 4 to 11 teachers, have committed to carry out a series of Hidden Heroes Lesson plans I left behind and also, working along with Linda Myres, the Community School Coordinator, they will work with the students to produce a regular monthly Hidden Heroes column in their community newspaper, The Beacon, as well as a regular interview feature on their Channel 5 television broadcast to the community. Others in the community will be invited to contribute as well.

Small communities can make a big difference.

Next week I want to write about a 76 year old Nanaimo man who has a lot to teach us about living an active, healthy lifestyle. In the meantime he will continue to do almost twice what I am able to do in my new exercise regime.