A Small Help Goes a Long Way

By Alec Bleher

Even in the best of times, my mind is always turning. I’m always trying to figure out how to do this thing called life, always trying to puzzle out how to be a positive force in a broken world. Still, I am but one man and the scale of the current crisis has driven that fact home for me.

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling so very small and powerless in the face of something far larger than any in my generation have had to face. This is only made worse by the fact that we have to isolate ourselves in our homes, separated from our community.

However, as time goes on, more opportunities are emerging for us to make a difference. I wanted to take a moment to share one opportunity I’ve been able to take advantage of.

As you might imagine, scientists around the globe are studying this disease. Stanford University in particular has a program called Folding@home. This program studies the function of proteins in various diseases in hopes of using this information to help combat them. Naturally, a lot of their efforts are focused on COVID-19 right now.

A lot of this work involves running complex computer simulations and is thus limited by the computing power available to them. That’s where people like me come in.

This past Christmas, I purchased a gaming PC with a decent amount of processing power. Thanks to the internet, I was able to download a program that makes my computer part of Folding@home’s extended processing network. Whatever processing power I am not using is being used by Stanford to help in the fight against COVID-19.

And in this difficult time, it feels incredibly good to be able to help in this unexpected way. I am glad something I purchased for my own entertainment is able to aid in this effort. I pray we all continue to find ways to help one another and spread God’s love to our community here and around the world.