Today is my first Steem anniversary

Today is the day 365 days since I registered and how fast time has passed ... wow what a journey! and if i learned something is that:

STEEMIT IS INCREDIBLE AND CAN CHANGE THE PEOPLE LIFE !!!

When I joined Steemit a year ago I was not having a good time. My parents were out of the country looking for work and I was living alone with my older brother, from the salary of my father who is a retired militar. This salary was barely enough to eat and several times we saw ourselves without food at the end of the month.

The only way to "lengthen" the money was by making long lines at supermarkets to buy food at regulated prices (cheaper price).

I dedicated myself to study and train parkour, trying to keep expenses to a minimum since I did not have a sufficient source of income to even eat well.

One day chatting with a user in Taringa (which is another page that pays you for creating content) He told me about Steemit and I decided to take a look and when I saw the Trends page I could not believe it, publications with $ 400- $ 800 seem very good for be true but since it really represented a light of hope for me, I registered and waited for my account.

Just 1 day before they accepted my account at Steemit I had an ankle injury. A second-degree sprain that left me with a cast on my foot for two weeks and at rest for a few months. With so much free time guess what I did ...

Once @proelite told me: In part you have a lot to thank for that injury, Reny, and me too. That injury triggered a series of events that benefited many people.

to read about steemit, learn about this new website and join the community!

At first, like many minnows, I did not very well. But then I understood that to receive first you have to give and I started to make animations of Steemit which I gave as a gift totally free, and to my surprise, people liked it! and i started receiving votes, and even some people asked me to work for them doing some logos and animations !! and so I began to receive my first rewards.

I spent on food all the money i earned and I continued spending more and more time at steemit and so for the first time, I was beginning to bring food to my house, with the help of Steemit.

Gifting animations and gifs led me to meet @sircork who was surprised that in a place where everyone talks to ask you something, I was doing the opposite, I was giving something away. And we chatted for several days until I decided to tell him something that I could not get out of my mind for several days:

I wanted to help people who were on the street, in worse conditions than me.

I knew that Steemit has the potential to help people in my country a lot, and if Steemit had helped me, why not help others?

But with what i was earning in my posts, it was barely enough for me.

@sircork never doubted me and from the beginning he supported me! He sent me some steem to start helping and the first images touched his heart.

@sircork realized the potential of Steemit to help people, if the community decided to join for the common good. It only required organization so we decided to team up and found @youarehope Foundation, a steem exclusive, worldwide humanitarian aid organization and proceeded to work with others to rally support, funds and operations for dozens of charitable exercises all over the world, helping, educating, feeding, clothing, shoeing and other services like malaria remediation in villages and such for thousands of needful recipients in the world's most fucked up places.

And since then we went from donating only 20 Arepas to more than 220 Arepas.

And more than 200 kg of food with hygiene items and notebooks and pencils

Also more than 50 pairs of shoes and clothes

https://dlive.io/video/malos10/9cf87080-5085-11e8-a332-91c6aa2008d6

We fixed a children's park on a School

We have made two murals in honor to Steemit

This one was with the help of @ikasumanera

We also have donated basket of food

A dream come true. And all this happened with the help of the STEEM community, here in our Steemit home.

I am very grateful with the people who joined @youarehope and supported all the projects from the beginning. @eturnerx @battleaxe @drakos @teamsteem @canadian-coconut @hopehuggs @c0ff33a @rhondak @shadowspub and many more !! You are incredible people who have contributed a lot to this foundation and all my life I will be grateful for your support in this journey !!

Before @youarehope there was not much charitable activity in Steemit and I would really like to believe that YouAreHope was the fire that started everything and inspired people to use the power of STEEM to help others in worse conditions than us.

Steemit has not only allowed me to help others, but also to help my family. And for what I feel more grateful is that, with the rewards of the posts, I could finish the construction of my house.

My father built this house with his own hands and his pocket as far as he could (when Venezuela was not yet in crisis) but with the crisis he could not continue buying more materials and the house was half built for quite some time.

Today my home feels warmer thanks to the help of Steemit!

How to forget the digital painting I did for Steemit

[Digital Paint - Steemit art] The Steemit Seabed and steem to the moon!

I told him to see Steemit as a sea; he was just getting close to the shore to get his hands wet, when at the bottom of the sea there are many treasures, big fish and communities. If he really wanted to get good results, he should dive into the water with the other people, join the communities!

A year later, I have a lot to thank Steemit and all the friends I've made here, they made me strong and I became useful!

Literally they have changed my life and we have touched the lives of many more people!

And from the bottom of my heart I thank you all for that!

Now I only talk about Steemit wherever I go, trying to register as many friends as possible. Since I have seen how Steemit has helped MUCH to those who join the community.

And if Venezuela was not in crisis and I could have another job outside of Steemit, I would use that money to become a dolphin or a steemit whale, because I believe in the potential of STEEM to help people !!

This first year was incredibly good! and the second year can only be better ❤ !!