Isn’t amazing how fast this year has zipped by and how quickly it seems that I am coming back to you sharing more great news about sharing? Well guess what? Today, yes today….is a National Giving Day! What? You don’t know what that is? Well, in 35 seconds you will.
Today, Give Local America will come together with thousands of non-profits across the country to raise funds, in a national day of giving, for a huge variety of causes. Their goal this year to raise one hundred million dollars nationwide…which is a whole lot of dinero to help so many amazing causes. So if you can spare some time or change, today just might be a great day to make a difference in your community.
“A good friend is a connection to life — a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.”
Lois Wyse
This past weekend I went away with two of my dearest and oldest friends to celebrate our upcoming birthdays. Both of these women have been my friends for decades, one since 6th grade. Time spent with dear friends who know you, your life, your story and love you regardless, is one of life’s greatest gifts.
I feel renewed, restored and so blessed to have such remarkable friends in my life.
As we start May, perhaps take a moment to reach out to a friend and connect or re-connect….simply nothing better.
Have you ever read a book that haunted you? Spoke to you and really made you stop and think? I just finished one and I have to say, it felt as if the universe had given me a gift. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a truly beautiful autobiography of a Stanford trained neurosurgeon who discovers he is dying of cancer.
An extraordinary view of life, from someone who spent his trying to save others. A man who loved literature and found himself pondering the question of what makes a human life meaningful? He writes early on the book, “If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?”
Paul Kalanithi wrote of his experience of both living and dying, and how his perception of both changed through his journey with cancer. One of my favorite quotes from the book was, ““There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.”
Such wise a beautiful words from a life well lived, and a legacy for all to learn from.
“Compassion is an action word with no boundaries.”
Prince
I have to admit that I loved Prince and his music, he sang the soundtrack of my youth. As cliché as it sounds, it is true. His untimely death surprised me for a multitude of reasons, but most off all for the strength of its impact. How can someone I have never met leave me feeling so sad and empty?
Again comes that question that threads through me often, what is the measure of a life? Is it using the gifts you have been given to help another? Sharing your God-given talents with world? Taking what you have to lift up another?
I heard this interview on CNN the other day and thought that it spoke volumes to who Prince was and the measure of his compassion. He helped so many everyday of his life but never told anyone.
Alicia Keys said, “There were many Kings in rock and roll but only one Prince.” It was so true.
Over and over we hear it said that one person can change the world, a phrase I do believe in. Anyone who inspires change, knows it takes a village to do so. It is a global village that billionaire Manoj Bhargava is creating to deliver products that can directly impact humanity and he is seriously the real deal.
Manoj has taken his fortune, created from 5 hour Energy, to focus on three areas to improve the world;water, energy and health. His approach is to, ” make a difference in other people’s lives, not just talk about it.” A new documentary called Billions in Change, follows his journey. Take a small peak here at what one man can do to improve the lives of seven billion people.
As our world becomes increasingly smaller and the global village a reality. It is people like Manoj Bhargava, who will not only change our world but inspire each of us to do the same.
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
Albert Einstein
It is everyone’s favorite day of the year. I know, that I am so happy once this day has passed, there is simply so much to do and stress over leading up to April 15th. So, I am thrilled that it arrives on a friday this year, so we can all celebrate that Tax Day is behind us!
Hopefully, this weekend can be spent remembering all the great deeds you did this past year and the lives that you touched.
Who knew that this week is National Volunteer week? In case you missed the memo from the White House, or your local news didn’t deem it important enough to cover, consider yourself informed…or at least you will be, by then of this.
National Volunteer Week, a program of Points of Light was established in 1974 and has grown each year, with thousands of volunteer projects and special events scheduled for the week. The week is all about inspiring, recognizing and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities. It’s about showing that by working together, we can do anything. National Volunteer Week is about taking action and encouraging people to be at the center of social change – discovering and demonstrating their power to make a difference.
If you don’t know where to start, take a peak at one of my favorite sites, Volunteer Match.org. You just type in your zip code, what you love to do and it will match with an organization that can use your help, in your community.
I know its monday and you are thinking of all you have to do this week, but maybe….just maybe you have a moment you can give to make someone else’s life better. So text your friends, your children, your family and make a plan to do something this week…it all starts with you!
A few weeks back, a dear friend sent me a New York Times article on a non-profit called Thread, and I was instantly sucked into this beautiful story. Perhaps, a tale as old as time, but one that never gets old, the story of amazing people who take their own tragedy to make someone else’s journey better.
This story begins with a young man named Ryan Hemminger, who was a straight A student in high school in Indiana, when his mother was in a bad car accident. Her injuries resulted in her no longer being able to work, a subsequent pain pill addiction and a downward spiral into poverty. What happened next was that a community of teachers rallied around Ryan and provided clothing, bus fair and mentoring, to save him. The support resulted in transforming Ryan into a varsity athlete, an A student again and he was admitted to the US Naval academy.
This however, is not the happy ending, but the beginning. Flash forward to 2004, when Ryan, now married to Sarah, a John Hopkins biomedical engineering grad student, was driving by a local high school and saw a group of students. Sarah, realized that many of them could be like Ryan,”Exceptional individuals with extraordinary situations.” Sarah realized, that she and Ryan needed to be a part of community that could pay forward the gift that was given to Ryan. It was out of that moment that Thread began.
Thread’s mission is to thread people together, regardless of socioeconomic and racial barriers. It is their belief that by building new families, not defined by DNA, but rather love and support…that they can change the world. Since 2006, that is exactly what they have done.
This year alone, over 255 students have been touched by the Thread family. Ninety-two percent of their students graduate from high school and go onto college and 80% have completed a college degree or certificate program. It is these invisible threads that create the connection that changes another’s life forever, the best ending imaginable.
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
Herman Melville
A crazy image but the perfect visual to describe the ties that bind. Each of us is uniquely bound to another, to a community, to a cause.
The ties that bind, that indescribable feeling that bonds each of us together. It is those fibers that make us feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. Ultimately, it is that same feeling of connection that empowers us to act and to help another.
We are all connected by a thousand tiny fibers and sympathetic threads, as Melville said.
The question remains, how do we turn that connection into action and the cause into an effect?
Charity Matters.
P.S. Apologies for the resend on this post and tomorrows. Due to a new web-host, the two earlier post this week were not sent to my beloved email subscribers, so here is Monday’s post and Wednesdays will come tomorrow. Thank you in advance for your understanding and continued support!
“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Marianne Williamson
I’m not sure if its daylight savings and the recent time change, or living in a glass house, but I have been thinking a lot about light lately. The joy the longer days bring, the extended daylight hours and the beauty of light all around us.
The reality is that light is not just external but internal. Have you ever met someone who just “lights up a room”? It is that indescribable joy that radiates out to all within its reach. We all possess it and some days it is brighter than others.
The real question is how do we ignite that goodness and joy within ourselves and within one another? That gift that is uniquely our own, our internal light…..it is time to let it shine.
I hope everyone had a great Easter. Last week I was in New York City, for a little business and a little Spring Break. We began our trip at the Statue of Liberty and followed the journey of my husband’s German grandfather, Henry. An immigrant story of grit, determination, hard work and ultimately the American Dream. It left us humbled, grateful and proud to be an American.
We ended our trip with the 911 Memorial Museum, one of the most beautiful tributes to humanity, I have ever experienced in a museum. It was beyond inspiring. To be in a space with hundreds of people in silence, as we took in the photos, voices, recordings, videos and raw humanity from that fateful day. You could hear sniffles, see tears and you could not be human without feeling such overwhelming sadness and loss.
It was a week of being re-inspired by the human spirit. To see what all of those who went before us did, to provide us this life. And then, to see how we all came together as one, in a time of grief and loss, was extraordinary. Two very different perspectives that left me forever changed, proud to be an American and full of gratitude.
I think by now most of you know that I am a huge fan of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Over the years my involvement has expanded to a number of different projects, but one that I am so proud of is the Junior Ambassador Program.
A few years back, when touring the new hospital space, a handful of us began a conversation about the need to get our children involved with supporting the hospital. That conversation was the beginning of Junior Ambassadors Program, a place where children use their talents to help others. Some children sell their artwork or photography. Some students throw parties, our son threw touchdowns for sponsorship and raised thousands of dollars for the hospital, simply using his skills to help another.
A recent catch up with a friend from CHLA, proudly shared how the program has grown from a handful of ambassadors to hundreds and while these ambassadors may come in small packages, their work is mighty.
This year the Junior Ambassador will raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Childrens Hospital Los Angels. Children helping children, there is simply nothing better.
