Ted Van Der Zalm

Ted Van Der Zalm has gone through many different things in his life. He went on a trip to Italy and met this lady who was a nun. After he left he thought to himself and said “This is the woman God wants me to be with”, so he bought a ring and went back to marry her. She stopped being a nun and ended up marrying him. Another time he was on a trip in a plane and the plane was forced out of the sky due to engine failure. They had landed in Tanzania and Ted was beaten into a coma.

Ted has seen many different poverty problems in the world, but some things that influenced him to help these problems are when he heard kids had to walk for a couple of hours just to get water that’s not even clean. Ted said, “I help because the need is huge there."

Ted has done a lot to benefit others, like he started Wells of Hope and he builds wells to give third world countries fresh water. He goes to schools to collect pennies in his Pennies of Hope truck, which helps them raise money to build more wells and stuff like that.

Ted is still helping out those third world countries and many more that are in poverty. Ted is important to me because he has definitely inspired me and influenced me to help the world be a better place. Ted has made a difference in my life because he has been through so much and usually people would want other people to feel bad for them, but no! He got up when he saw those people and decided to make a change.