Local gives back with a ‘bigger or better’ challenge

IDAHO FALLS — Eugene Engmann carries a red book with him everywhere he goes. Its pages contain messages about life and happiness from people all over the world.

Some of these handwritten messages come from elected officials and opinion leaders. Others come from everyday people. Among them is this advice from 2019 Nobel Prize winner Stan Whittingham: “Make sure you enjoy life. It’s not just work.”

“The people who win the Nobel Prize work really hard, so it meant a lot to me when he said, ‘Take time to enjoy life,'” Engmann tells EastIdahoNews.com.

Learning from others has become a lifelong pursuit for Engmann. The 32-year-old Idaho Falls native travels frequently for his work at the Idaho National Laboratory, which gives him many opportunities to interact with others.

But Engmann doesn’t only experience happiness second-hand. He recently launched a fundraiser for a local charity whose sole purpose is to spread happiness and give back to the community.

He hopes to raise $2,500 for the Ronald McDonald Family Room at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center between now and January — and he’s doing it with a bigger or better trade challenge.

He started with a paper clip and began trading it for larger or better items.

“I traded it for a diary,” says Engmann. “It cost about $12.”

He traded the journal for a toolbox, which was traded for a new coffee table from Romaine’s Mattress King. He traded the coffee table for a three-day stay in a Teton Adventure Rentals RV.

“I’m currently looking for an exchange for the three-day stay,” he says, which is worth $948.

The idea is to sell the last item and donate the money to the Ronald McDonald House. Engmann also accepts donations via Venmo.

During this endeavor, Engmann says it has been enriching to meet people he would never have otherwise met and to see how much they are willing to give.

“You can learn from everyone”

His interest in learning from the life experiences of others stems from his childhood. Growing up in Ghana, West Africa, he recalls a “life-changing” lesson he learned in sixth grade.

“My cousin from third grade came home and said she had learned about air in school. I asked her, ‘What did you learn about air?’ She answered in a very simple and profound way: ‘Air is a mixture of gases,'” Engmann recalls.

The next day, Engmann said, the teacher asked him the same question in his science class. When he remembered what his cousin had told him the day before, he didn’t think he had the right answer, but raised his hand anyway.

He repeated what his cousin had told him and his teacher asked the class to clap for him.

“That was a decisive moment in my life. You can learn something from everyone,” says Engmann.

Years later, he finally attended college at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg. He bought a black book and began collecting advice from the people he met.

One day he sent his book to the President of the United States. He refused to mention the President’s name. The book was missing for a long time and Engmann thought he would never get it back.

Months later, he went to the mailbox and saw a letter from the White House.

“I didn’t care if he (the president) had written in it. I just wanted my book back,” says Engmann. “The president couldn’t write at the time… but he sent me a signed picture.”

Although the president did not respond, his black book contains personal messages from Idaho Governor Brad Little and Paulette Jordan, his Democratic opponent in the 2018 election.

With the red book, Engmann has broadened his focus. On a piece of paper glued to the back, this sentence is written in 16 languages: “If you could give me one piece of advice about life and happiness, what would it be? Please write it in my book.”

Engmann has collected dozens of comments in his red book and now has a Facebook page where he writes about the people he meets on this endeavor.

Since launching the fundraiser, he has raised about $350 through Venmo.

Anyone interested in making a trade or donation can message Engmann via his Facebook page or call him at (208) 206-3260.