Each year this day comes and I wonder how can I convey and share my gratitude for those that have served our country. There is no real way to express how grateful I am for our freedoms. While searching for something, this video came to my attention.
While I am an occasional country music fan, I had never seen this song called Arlington. If you do one thing today, to stop and feel grateful, watch this.
As we light our barbecues and pack up from our long weekends. Let us be mindful of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us all and their families. God Bless America and Happy Memorial Day everyone!
With 1.9 million non-profits and more stories to share than we possibly could right here, Charity Matters had to put some filters on who we covered. The core root is people helping people in the United States. As a result, we don’t always cover some amazing international causes because it is a little outside the scope.
Every once in a while, we come across someone, who just gets it and it really doesn’t matter where they live or who they serve, it is what they do for others that becomes the filter for goodness. Without trying to create water and filter jokes, Charity Water is one of those stories. More specifically, the story of Scott Harrison, the former nightclub promoter who turned his life and thousands of others he serves around by creating Charity Water.
Scott says in his bio, “For me, charity is practical. It’s sometimes easy and more often inconvenient, but always necessary. It is the ability to use one’s position of influence, relative wealth and power to affect lives for the better. Charity is singular and achievable.”
Since 2006, Scott and his team have provided over 6 million people with the gift of clean water. Now that is a true filter for goodness.
I have been searching for inspiration everywhere as I sat down this weekend to work on a commencement speech I am giving in June. Truly a terrifying prospect. If you were to impart wisdom, which by the way I am not sure I have to impart….to a group of young high school graduates, what would you want them to know?
There is so much to I want to say but I need them to leave with one nugget, one seed, one thought that they might possibly remember….although to be honest, the only thing that comforts me is that most of us do not remember our commencement speaker…..just sayin.
I digress, so I came across this, and thought I would share it with you. I honestly wish this guy would write my speech because this is good stuff. Enjoy!
If this doesn’t get your week off to a great start, then I am not what will. Happy Monday everyone!
One of my favorite books is Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. It is the real life story of loss and grief. A book I have given to many a friend who has lost a loved one.
What makes this book magical is that it talks about what triggers these emotions, in such a beautiful way. This year, has been a year of magical thinking. No, I have not lost a loved one but there has been much loss. We moved from the home where we raised our sons, we didn’t just get rid of the house, but most of everything inside…who knew that purging is loss? Our second son went off to college, our new house was truly empty, the dog died and I realized that perhaps my youth was on its way out too.
All loss but in a different way. It just chips away at you little by little, rather than in that large earthquake of loss that we experience with death. But the sadness, the feeling of loss is still there. Joan Didion writes, “we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all.”
Loss is life, it is change, it is growth and renewal and it is hard. Whether it comes to you in an earthquake or is chipped away piece by piece it is a process that each of us must endure in our own way. This past year of loss, has once again, been a year of magical thinking.
Aging is something that happens to all of us. This year with a “big” birthday ahead, I have been thinking about it, a bit more than usual. I have heard I should start looking in the mail for the AARP card, really? Let me be clear here, I am getting older (of course) but am not old, do not feel old and hope to be someone who never acts old, regardless of my age. One can hope.
I am also blessed with great role models, my grandmother in her nineties would take care of “the elderly,” people in their seventies. My Dad at 76, spins with me at the gym everyday, and as far as I can tell, everyone in my family who ever “retired” seems to just get busier.
So when I saw this recent video, I thought it was worth a share.
Age is a number, an attitude and a lifestyle. The number doesn’t matter but rather, what you do with your time….even if you have a little less.
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.
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.
Charity Matter Founder, Gotta Have Sole Founder, Nicholas Lowinger and PGK Founder, Molly Yuska
I am a connector, or so I’ve been told. Bringing people together brings me great joy, and bringing people together who do great work, to make our world better, is simply THE best! This weekend, I had the privilege of being with an uber connector, my friend Molly Yuska of Project Giving Kids.
Project Giving Kids is the ultimate example of what happens when people collaborate, to simply do good for others. PGK’s mission is to cultivate empathy in children by connecting them to age-appropriate service opportunities at a critical time in their development.
This past weekend, Molly brought together over eighteen non-profits under one roof, to celebrate their work and what happens when we all work towards a common goal. Everyone from food pantries, to animal shelters, environmental causes and everything in between. It was an evening to celebrate collaboration and so many non-profits and their selfless work.
The night’s honoree was eighteen year old Nicholas Lowinger, of Gotta Have Sole. A non-profit founder, at the age of 13, who has now provided shoes for over 20,000 homeless children across 47 states. It was a night to be reminded how one person CAN make a difference and that connecting good is what truly matters.
A Girl in the River:The Price of Forgiveness for Documentary Short film, a movie I never saw. For that matter I didn’t even see one of the documentary short films. Did you? Where would you even go to see it, if you wanted too? I honestly have no idea.
I love the Academy Awards. The glamor, the red carpet, the films…I love it all. The power a film has to tell a story, to make us think, to feel and reflect upon our human condition, is pure magic. The art of storytelling can create change.
As I watched last nights show, along with billions of others, I was inspired by the woman from Pakistan, Sharmeen Chinoy, whose film told a story, that has done just that. One woman used her gift to inspire others. You don’t need to start a non-profit to make a difference, you simply have to use your gifts to help another. That is who the real winners are.
Let me begin by saying I believe in signs. Have you ever exited a freeway off ramp to find someone standing there with a sign? It can be anything from need food, homeless please help….you know the ones. Every time, I feel uncomfortable, I feel guilty and often, even ashamed when I do not roll down the window and give.
I have interviewed many founders and executive directors of homeless shelters and all have advised me never, ever give in this way, and so for the most part I haven’t. I have also learned from past experience. A time at USC when I ran across the street and used my allowance to buy a hungry man groceries, only to be yelled at that he didn’t want the food. A blind man, who took my money and then loaded up his wheelchair in his van and drove away.
I’m sure my experiences are exceptions but nonetheless, experiences that changed my giving in this manner….until the other day. It was the long holiday weekend and we pulled off the freeway and missed the light. So there we were, trapped with a handsome young man and a sign. I tried to turn my head away to avoid eye contact, feeling that creeping feeling of shame, when the most unexpected thing happened.
He picked up a cello, which was broken and patched together, that I hadn’t seen, and began to play. I rolled down the window to hear and he smiled a beautiful smile and told us he wrote the piece and started playing at the age of 11. We were entranced, as were all the other motorist around us. We couldn’t open our wallets fast enough and when the light turned green, we wanted to cry and never wanted his beautiful music to end.
The joy this beautiful music brought was a gift and a sign. A sign to open my heart, my eyes and my ears to all that is around me. When I do that, beauty is everywhere, you just need to look and listen to the signs.
