This year is one that truly deserves my traditional Dec. 31 toast: "#@%! the Old Year, in with the New Year!" We've witnessed an historic election and endured financial disaster upon disaster. Nevertheless, we Americans are incredibly rich, and the December holidays are a perfect time to remind ourselves of that fact.

The vastness of American wealth was brought home to me back in September by Kim Wright-Violich, president of Schwab Charitable. During Schwab's annual Impact Conference, Wright-Violich announced that donors could use their accounts to guarantee loans extended by microfinance organizations, which would expand these organizations' ability to lend to citizens of Third World nations. The program is administered in partnership with the Grameen Foundation. Money put up as a guarantee would never actually leave donors' accounts unless the borrower defaulted (an infrequent event), in which case the guarantee would become a gift. Social leveraging is the best term I can think of to describe the role the guarantee plays.

Here's what Wright-Violich told me that truly blew my mind. Typically, the people who get microloans are women who want to start or expand their own business. The women's success rate is high, and the increased income usually goes to buying more and better food for their children. Improved nutrition means these children are more likely to get the protein they need to grow to their full height and achieve their cognitive capacity.

That's when I realized how sheltered I am. For all my nights spent worrying about my diminished retirement assets and my kids' college bills; for all my disappointment about forgoing a home renovation until my second child graduates—I have never, ever worried about my children not reaching their full size or mental capacity because they didn't get enough to eat. Therefore I am rich. And so, I trust, are you.

Schwab Charitable is not the only financial institution to unveil a program to support microfinance this year; Calvert has done so as well. It's an inspiring reminder that we are citizens of a large and varied world. As we celebrate the holidays with family and friends, it bears remembering that the plenty that surrounds us is, at least in part, an accident of birth. In another life, in another place, our circumstances could be quite different.