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Charity Matters Inspiration

Season One..thats a wrap!

Well, we did it! We set out to share these incredible stories of our favorite humans in a different format and sixteen podcast interviews later we have! I am always amazed when I set out to do something I have never done and somehow with a huge leap of faith and a lot of help, it happens. The journey was bumpy, that is for sure! When you look in the rearview mirror there is an incredible sense of accomplishment in seeing how far you have come. Honestly, the journey would not have been possible without all of you, the best traveling companions a girl could ask for.

Like all long journeys, this one began last July with more than a handful of cheerleaders nudging me towards the podcast.  Once the idea took root, it came time to figure out how to make it happen. There were more than a few learning curves along the way, almost all technology-related. Once those hurdles were overcome we were off to the races in January. Now that the first lap of the race is completed, it is time for rest.

Taking a moment to reflect on the lessons learned, the challenges, and the next steps. During this interim, we will still be sending out weekly emails and we will be working on Season Two which will debut in July.  Speaking of July, Charity Matters will be celebrating its official 10th birthday on July 17th. With that milestone comes our renewed commitment to introducing you to amazing humans each week who inspire each of us to give the best of ourselves, to one another and the world.

Thank you again for subscribing and telling your friends about the Charity Matters Podcast. We are so grateful for you continuing to support this work and journey.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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Charity Matters Quotes

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2021

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Thank you all for your wonderful support of our Charity Matters Podcast launch. We are so excited to share our first episode with you next week.  It seems only fitting as we talk about service that today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We do so through this national day of service that many refer to as a day “on” rather than a day off.

This amazing man left us with a legacy of love, compassion, acceptance, and tolerance.

If you’re not sure about the best way to celebrate this day of service, Volunteer Match has an incredible list of volunteer opportunities across the country today. You can also go to Americorps to find a variety of great resources for service.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “What are you doing for others?”

Charity Matters.

 

Copyright © 2021 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

The word of the year

2020 has certainly been a year. So many of us have added new words to our vocabulary, pivot, adapt and of course COVID. I was not looking for a new word for this year but this word seemed that this word picked me. For the past six weeks, I have been part of a workout program that has asked me to pick a word each week. It has been amazing how just one small word can really transform your thoughts. I picked many words during the six-week workout journey such as strength, determination, detox but never the word patience. For sure a quality that I need to work on but never one, I would choose.

Making an intention

Somehow this word chose me. This past week I  hopped onto my Peleton bike, and the instructor, Ali Love, had a word….patience.  As I peddled Ali love said, “When we are patient letting go frees us.”  Her words spoke to me. Now that this word has chosen me I can think of nothing else but how to attain this elusive virtue.

The Waiting Game

All of us have had to be patient since last March. We have all been in some sort of waiting game and that wait has required patience. We have waited for lockdowns to end, for life to return to “normal,” for the political landscape to quiet down, for a vaccine and now we wait for vaccine distribution to begin. I don’t know about you but I have been waiting in line at Trader Joe’s for months.  All of this waiting requires a skill set that I realized I simply do not possess, patience. Is it the waiting that is causing impatience? Or the thought that maybe each of us had plans other than a pandemic? Perhaps our expectations that things are happening in a different order than we had planned?

The Sign

I’m honestly not sure of the answers. As I pondered these questions, the strangest thing happened. This quote popped into my Instagram feed and stopped me.

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.

Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

The Process

The quote is from a German poet named Rainer Rilke (photo above). So I began to try to break his message down.

“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.” This sounds so much easier than it actually is. Having patience with everything is impossible but trying to love the questions is a process that seems much more reasonable. To love the questions. This is something I can try to do.

“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.” This one really got to me. We are all looking for the answers. When can I see my family and friends? When can our children go to school? When will my life feel normal? Rather than to ask why and look for reasons we need to simply live. Enjoy each moment with the family in front of us. Find a way to appreciate this time with our children at home and realize it isn’t forever. Searching makes us impatient.

“And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.” We need to embrace the life we have. Take in every precious moment like it could be our last. Find beauty in everything and everyone. Perhaps, this is the real lesson in patience.

“Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” I do love this. The idea that we can live ourselves into the answer. If we can just be and not wait then we will not need the answers. We will live them. This gave me peace. We will see if it gives me patience. Maybe the Peleton instructor was right? Letting go is what frees us.

The Answer

We are all dealing with so many of the same frustrations and yet each of our journeys is unique. 2020 has brought loss and gifts to each of us. Patience may still not be my favorite word or strength but it is a gift. Realizing that the only thing I can control is my reaction and managing my expectations. This is the first step on my journey towards becoming patient. As Rilke said, ” Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always. The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. The only journey is the one within.”

Charity Matters.

 

Copyright © 2020 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Changes ahead

Two weeks ago, I headed back east to visit a friend and take in a little fall color. You may remember reading about it, in Falling Back, A Season of Change. It was a fantastic trip with long walks on crisp fall mornings and some much-needed time for reflection. All of us have experienced incredible changes in the last few months.  This year has been a wild ride for sure with twists and turns everywhere. Processing it all can be overwhelming but this trip gave me the time to digest some of it.

The Promise that was 2020

Last year at this time I was working on a television version of the blog with a major network. Many of you may not know but I wrote Charity Matters as a television show long before I began the blog. It was a crazy and exciting time with the hope to bring these stories to life in another way. Corona has put a pause on that for now. Like many of us, life feels like the pause button has been pushed and is stuck. We are somehow suspended in time and moving in slow motion compared to the pace a year ago.

Questions

While we are paused, it seems the perfect time to reflect. What did we plan on a year ago that didn’t happen? What dream do we still have that isn’t realized? What have we learned during this time? How have our priorities shifted? These are some of the questions that I have been asking myself lately.

Answers

I do not have all of the answers but I do have some. More than that, I am at peace with the innate belief that things happen for a reason. During this past year, I have learned to be kinder to myself. A year later, I think about how I spend my time and the precious gift that it is. I know that I still want to share these incredible stories of people who give their lives to better others.  Now I am open to new and different ways to do that.

Transition

So, I am excited about where Charity Matters is heading as we approach our 10th birthday next year. So hard to believe! There have been so many incredible conversations and I am really excited to share them with you in 2021 in a new and exciting way. With change comes that period of transition. That awkward time between the old and the new. Let’s face it transitions are never easy. I am hoping you will be patient with me during this time. You may see a repost or I may take a week off here and there. Something I have barely done in a decade. Please know I am not actually taking time off but working on what is coming next.

What’s Ahead

While I hate to leave you all hanging. That is what I am going to do. I do want you to know that sharing these stories with you each week has been the greatest privilege. Receiving your comments and kind words in my email box truly makes my week. Those nights when it’s late and I am trying to make a deadline, each of you reminds me why I do this work when you share these stories. I want to be clear, I’m not going anywhere and you will still be hearing from me but between now and the end of the year will be a time of transition. Thank you in advance for your patience.

Rebirth

As I said before I left on my trip, change, even the change of colors on the most beautiful fall tree will lead to a loss. And that loss whether of a way of life, of a loved one, a job, will inevitably lead to a rebirth. So here is to a rebirth, a new beginning, and a journey that I can’t wait to take with all of you.

 

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Falling back, a season of change

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

 F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is officially fall, a season of change, and a time to witness the glory of fall leaves and shed the old before moving ahead. It is a season of change.  Living in Southern California Fall isn’t usually a season for us. Sure we all fake it with decor and pumpkins but nature isn’t showing us the way as it does in the rest of the country. So this weekend, as I head to the east to catch a glimpse of real Fall, I find myself pondering the greater meaning of the changing of the seasons.

Change

These past seven months every one of us has faced extraordinary change in one way or another. Whether it’s as simple as not going to church, as difficult as not going to school, or as complicated as health issues, missing elderly family members, financial struggles, or employment. In one way or another, we have all experienced incredible change and loss. Some days it feels as if we are living in an alternate universe with our sense of “normalcy” gone. Many of us are waiting for things to “return to normal.”

LOSS

We cling to the past and life as we knew it. Much as a tree tries to hold onto its leaves as fall tries to shake them down. I think about the changes some of our oldest citizens have witnessed in their lifetimes. Some born before the 1918 pandemic witnessed  World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the list goes on. Each major world event created enormous loss and each event changed life as they knew it forever. The leaves fell off, one by one as each old way of life was blown away. No matter how hard we try to hold on, the change is here and it is inevitable.

Honestly, for me, I think I am just beginning to process it all. So much happened so quickly between the pandemic, the economic aftermath, George Floyd, hurricanes in the south, and then our wildfires here in the west. Those fires, some of which still burn, have destroyed more than a million trees that will not grow this year. Just as the pandemic has taken more than a million lives across the globe. The loss is unimaginable in so many ways.

Regrowth

However, if there is one thing I know about the forest, is that after a fire and complete destruction. The soil is fertilized and ready to begin again. That change, even the change of colors on the most beautiful fall tree will lead to loss. And that loss whether of a way of life, of a loved one, of a job, of school, will inevitably lead to a rebirth.

I will be walking in the fall foliage this weekend, seeing the beauty of change and the shedding of old leaves. I will be thinking about the opportunity for growth, a place to start anew, and a moment to mourn the beauty of what was.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Cancer

Claire Marie Foundation

Growing up in LA, Marianne Banister was a familiar face on daily on our local ABC news station. She was always reporting from a storm, a flood, a fire…some sort of disaster. When a friend suggested that I reach out to interview Marianne, who now lives in Baltimore, I was a bit intimidated. Marianne and her husband lost their 17-year-old daughter Claire to melanoma.

Their family was determined to fulfill  Claire’s vision to provide clarity and hope in the fight against adolescent and young adult melanoma through their work at the Claire Marie Foundation. They are on a mission to ensure awareness, education, and prevention of cancer that has increased 250% in the last forty years.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what THE Claire Marie Foundation does?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: When this happened to our family, to our daughter, Claire, we were blindsided. And because even the medical profession did not realize kids could get melanoma at this age. It looked different than adult melanoma and it was more aggressive and more invasive. according to pediatricians. Melanoma is the number two, cancer in adolescence from 10 to 19 and the number one cancer in young adults from 20 to 29. This cancer is the number one cause of cancer death and young women 25 to 30. In young people, this disease is more aggressive and invasive than in older people.

We’re the only nonprofit in the country that focuses on preventing melanoma specifically in adolescents and young adults. We are not trying to treat it and we’re not doing research to find an answer to find the new drug or the therapy. Please, I pray to God we find that tomorrow.  Nobody’s helping to prevent it and that’s our job.

CMF Five Year Retrospective 2019 from Claire Marie Foundation on Vimeo.

Charity Matters: Can you tell us what the risk factors of Melanoma are?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst:  If you wear sunscreen if you wear up 50 SPF clothing if you don’t go to a tanning booth and if you advocate for yourself. That’s it, then you’re good. I want to add empower yourself to advocate and get at the front of it. Our whole goal is to get people in and connect them with a dermatologist. If you don’t already have a patient relationship with a dermatologist, it can take three to five months to get your first appointment. 

Charity Matters: Can you share some of Claire’s Journey?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: Claire got a routine skin exam at 13, it was November. We had them checked every year, no history in the family, just having lived in Southern California being a reporter being aware of it. We go back in June for her yearly exam and about a week before that the mole on her ankle that she was born with started to change. But it didn’t look like what we’re educated to look at for melanoma. It wasn’t thick, it wasn’t dark. The borders were not irregular, none of that it just looked a little dusty gray in color.

Claire kept it very quiet and to herself because she didn’t want to be put on a shelf with her friends. She didn’t want to have gossip and didn’t want to engage. Claire wanted to deal with it and went out and lived her life. We were very fortunate to live where we do, where we had renowned medical support 10 minutes away.

About her junior year when we thought we were well past it, her oncologist, Dr. Sharma asked her if she would mentor another young girl who had come in the month that Claire was diagnosed.  As we were discussing his request for her to help this other young person coming through it. She said, “Mom, why do you think this happened to us?”

I said, “Maybe being who you are because you’re so positive and energized. And being what I do professionally, you know, maybe we can do this together when you’re ready?” Claire said, “Yeah, when I’m a senior, then it won’t matter. And I can tell people, and I can advocate.”  She still was not quite there yet wanting to share her story. So we knew down the road, that’s what she would want to do. The bottom line is I just couldn’t sit here with this information and not warn other parents. If someone had raised the flag of awareness before us, then maybe she’d still be here.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Claire Marie Foundation?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst:  We started with community support. We got launched in October 2014, it will be six years ago this month. Claire’s friends from her school wanted to help and do something.  One of her best buddies since childhood called me and said,” Hey, Miss Marion, do you have a logo?” And I was like, Why? I mean, we knew we were going to do something, but we are just trying to get through the grief and to deal with things.

Claire’s friends did this dance a THON and raised $24,000 called Moves for Claire. I didn’t know how many people my daughter knew. And then friends of other friends and her story carried. There were 500 kids there. And they had sponsorships, and I mean, they went all out. We realized they’re listening and paying attention now. So we need to take advantage of this. If we want to do this in her memory, we have to do it while they want to engage. And they have been our biggest force.

So through them, we then went forward, we have collegiate ambassadors, and they started the program for so they were in the high school class of 2015, college class of 2019. We’ve had just short of 100 kids on 46 campuses. And they do peer to peer education and mentoring and awareness programs.

My husband cycled 620 miles to symbolically take her to college. Claire was accepted to college just a couple of days before she passed. So she got accepted to Georgia, Southern University, Alabama. So he cycled from Charleston to Georgia Southern into Bama. We did this big media raising campaign and because it was a football game that she promised her dad he could go with her. So you know, it was a way of him to process it and honor her, but it was a way for us to raise awareness. We started doing that and running fast.

The kids came up with a lot of these ideas,  they’re all young adults now. We have partnerships since with US lacrosse and we work with the Melanoma Research Foundation, as one of their advocacy partners. We go to Capitol Hill and campaign for funding and support for research. We are developing a relationship and a partnership with Teen Cancer America out in LA. we want to bring our screening program out there, if a young person is going through cancer, guess what that puts you at elevated risk for melanoma.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: The biggest challenge for all this is that we’re the only ones out here doing it. We’ve screened 1000 young people, we found 16% have A typical moles that need a biopsy. Funding is still a big issue. We could use a staff of two full people, two full-time people. You know, it’s just me and my husband and the volunteers that pop in and out and help us out.

Secondly is getting our information out there. Awareness education, like this event we’re doing October 3rd, we always try to reach young people in the way that they’ll hear us.  It’s a two-hour Music Festival, with performers from LA Nashville, Baltimore, and Charleston. It’s really it’s a lot of fun. Then of course within that, we’ll have the melanoma prevention messaging built within it.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst:  Claire. There’s never anything that’s going to make it right that we lost her. There’s never any sense to it. But I truly believe this is her purpose. And if I don’t keep this foundation going and do the work that needs to be done, and I’m not fulfilling her purpose, and we would have lost her for no reason.

When people ask me how many children do you have, although it will be followed by an awkward moment. I just say well, I have two girls, one watches out for me from heaven and the other one is with me here.  I’m not going to say only have one daughter, that’s not going to happen because she existed and she had a purpose. She has changed lives and she has saved lives. We have had a number of young people who have found melanomas early and they always tell me,” You know, I thought of Claire, and I went and got it checked and it was a melanoma.”

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: My husband always says if we save one kid, we’ve done our work. And we’ve done that many times over. I think what I’m most proud of is we’re changing the narrative. We’re changing the focus, Claire was overlooked, she was a victim of the system. The system is not broken, but it needs to be tweaked.

Because of us, many organizations are now creating a Young Adult adolescent melanoma focus, in terms of research, and in terms of treatment and support. I know specifically within the melanoma world, we’ve changed that narrative. I think that is what I am most proud of in six years, we’re starting conversations, and making people understand that it’s just not a matter of putting on sunscreen, and calling it a day.  I think it’s changing the narrative of the conversation and elevating the importance and value that young people are getting this disease to the rate they are and that it is not rare.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst:  The dream would be that every young person from two-years-old on should incorporate full-body dermoscopy-based skin screenings every year, as part of their WellCare. When they go to their pediatrician and their eye doctor and their dentist, they see the dermatologist, they get checked, that becomes part of their routine.

 We just don’t want anybody else to go through what we did, because it’s so darn preventable. When you think about it, melanoma is one of the cancers that you have the best odds of seen visually externally on your body. And a screening takes 10 minutes, and you don’t have to drink anything, and you don’t have to get an MRI and you don’t have to get a CAT scan, you just go in a robe, 10 minutes, a dermatologist with a scope. So we just need to it’s a system that’s broken, it needs to be readapted so that would be my dream.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: I think one of the changes that surprised me is you get a different identity, you realize that life is you cannot go back to life as it was because it’s no longer there. So you have to recreate yourself. I’m in a different world.  So I’ve expanded the people in my life.

 I’ve had a lot of loss in my life and I’ve always lived my life as you have to thoroughly embrace it each day as it is. My faith is stronger than ever because I know she’s fine. I know she’s okay. I absolutely know because I’m telling you as smart as I like to think I am. I am not that brilliant.

This foundation has a life of its own. And as my older daughter says,” Claire will be done with it when she’s tired of Claire show.” Until then, it’ll just keep happening things that just drop in our lap. Opportunities that come up or people we meet that just really like jumpstart us into a new phase. And it’s just like, okay, she’s not done with the Claire show just yet. 

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Marianne Banister Wagonhurst: We’ve been asked this by other parents often how we dealt with the grief. We just had to dig down to this just horrendous feeling and we had to feel but then able to come out the other side. And it seems like to me that at some point of grief you have to process this pain. I think for me because I always remembered that conversation we had about Claire helping others, I know she would be proud of this.  

It’s not that you ever want this to happen, but if it does, to know that something has been inspired by her in a positive way. That’s what we look at.  There was nothing she could have done to control this or affect it and so when that happens, it’s kind of like well, what do we do with this now? Our daughter is having a great impact because of what we’re doing and that’s the best we can do for those we love.

 

 

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Causes

Tzedek America

I was raised to never discuss religion or politics, to respect everyone’s beliefs and to always be open to learning from others. Faith plays a large part in my life and in my nonprofit work. The nonprofit a group of us founded over seventeen years ago provided chaplains of all faith to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. That experience confirmed to me that believing in something bigger than yourself is something that will always serve as a life anchor, whatever that belief is.

I took my current job as the Executive Director at TACSC mainly because I loved being a part of planting the seeds of compassion in our children and teaching students about service. Right before COVID, I had the privilege of meeting Avram Mandell, who is doing similar work with youth but taking it to a whole different level with his nonprofit Tzedek America. Let’s hope that as millions of children get ready to begin school this month that they have access to the incredible experiences Tzedek America is providing.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what TZEDEK America does?

Avram Mandell: We engage Jewish teenagers through immersive social justice experiences. We try to teach empathy and not sympathy and we are trying to move the needle in the social justice world by connecting these teenagers to social justice issues and to people affected by these issues. The best way to do that is through stories and meeting people and coming into proximity with those who are dealing with these issues as opposed to watching a documentary or reading an article. After kids go on our trips they begin volunteering, donating their time, running drives at their school getting, and their parents involved. We are really seeing the impact of our work.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start TZEDEK America?

Avram Mandell: I have a Master’s in Education from Hebrew Union. I had worked at Jewish Summer Camps, been a youth group advisor, and had experiential learning in my blood. I ran school programs, adult learning programs, garden programs, video programs always acting as an innovator and creator. My attitude in life is that there is always a way to make things happen. 

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit I wanted to go and get my hands dirty and really do something about this national natural disaster. So I reached out at the synagogue and twelve teenagers volunteered. We had a contact at the Methodist Church in Pearlington, Mississippi and we set out to do flood relief work. We all had a powerful experience bringing hope to that part of the world. I remember when we went to our cots there were little bags for us with toiletries and notes from kindergartners thanking us for volunteering. I had never been a recipient and it was such a beautiful moment for all of us.

We came back from the trip and all of those students wrote their college essays about this experience which was transformative. Teenagers care about social justice but they don’t know what to do about it. So I wanted to create an organization that would engage Jewish teenagers in their Jewish values and that those values support their passion for doing good in the world. I wanted to give them the tools to do something about it. We began in 2014, as a gap year program and people started calling and asking for half-day trips and then four-day trips. We were taking kids to skid-row, the border, and giving them these incredible experiences and word started to get out.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Avram Mandell: I think one of our biggest challenges is staffing. How do you find someone to be part of a start-up and has that same passion that fuels you to do this work? It’s one thing when the founder is up until 1 am working but if I am just an employee I don’t have that same commitment.  As we grow you try to do it all and realize quickly that you can’t. So, how do you find the staff member that is fun, engaging, charming, a good educator, good with teenagers, organized to plan the logistics of all our trips and experiences? 

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Avram Mandell: The feedback from our work reminds us that this is worth it. Knowing we are having an impact. I get the results I want from our students. I just got a text an hour ago of a picture of third-graders writing notes to people in detention centers.  It turns out that the 9th grader that went to one of our trips at the border was sharing her experience with this third-grade class and the third graders were so inspired that they wanted to write welcome to America notes. That is why we do what we do. 

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Avram Mandell:  We brought a group of 6th graders to a recovery group. A 27-year-old woman shared her journey with our students. After her story, the 6th grader said to the woman, “You are such a strong woman, we have so much to learn from you.” The little girl went on to say that she struggled with her relationship with her parents and told the woman what a great example of strength she was.

We create these experiences for teenagers on a weekly basis that students would not ordinarily have. The students learn that we are all just human beings. We all have so much in common and so much more to learn from one another.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and What has your impact been?

Avram Mandell: Our impact is the stories like the one I just shared. It wouldn’t be the statistics. When you show up at a nonprofit with a group of teenagers and recognize one of the volunteers and say, “Don’t I know you?” She says, “Yes, you brought me here three months ago and now I volunteer here.” Then you ask is she doing this for required community service hours and she replies, “No, this is just what I do.”

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for TZEDEK America, what would that be?

Avram Mandell: I would love to have our programming in different cities so we can affect other students with what we are doing. I would love to have more capacity to make that happen. There is a quote from a book called Ethics of Our Fathers that says, “You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to desist from it.”  We know the ripple effect of our work and those we impact is large.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Avram Mandell:  I have learned so much from our program. I know more about immigration than I knew before, I know more about homelessness than I knew before. I am more socially aware and socially engaged than ever before.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Avram Mandell:  I think about my eulogy a lot. Eulogies are about people’s relationships and about people being there for one another. I think about the educational concept called design with the end in mind and the creators of this concept who wrote a book about what do you want your end to be?  I think about my end.

What do I want the end to be? I want to see that my kids and students are volunteering their time and that they know they have an obligation to make the world a better place. You can not ignore the problem. That is my end.  When my students have kids and take them to volunteer somewhere. When my students live their life with meaning.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Gordie, a story worth retelling…again and again

Gordie's story

Last week took our youngest back to his college in Texas.  He attends a big college football school where pre-COVID weekends included tailgates, football games, and the obligatory fraternity parties. This year our son will be a Sophmore and will be on the other side of the fraternity rush. With so many students heading off to college and parents concerned about COVID and so much more this year.  I was reminded that the 16th year anniversary of Gordie Bailey’s death is coming up.  I typically don’t repost but I have shared his story every year. The lesson is invaluable and sadly, needs to be told over and over to each new generation of college students.

Loss

So often we do not make discoveries or connections until it is too late.  We do not realize the value of a friend until they have moved away.  We do not appreciate our children until they have left for college or do not know the value of one’s life until it has passed.

Why is it that we wait to make these connections? Why is our hindsight is so crystal clear and our day-to-day vision so clouded? This story is perhaps no different, however, the beauty of it lies in the ability to take that clear vision and create something that matters.

This month thousands of college freshmen have left home, and many are beginning the process of Rush as they look to make new homes away from home in sororities and fraternities across the country. That is exactly what Gordie Bailey did in September 2004, as an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Gordie’s Story

Gordie, a fun-loving freshman who had been the Co-captain of his varsity high school football team, a drama star, a guitar player, and a walk-on at Boulder’s lacrosse team was adored by all. He pledged Chi Psi. On the evening of September 16th, Gordie and twenty-six other pledge brothers dressed in coats and ties for “bid night”, were taken blindfolded to the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest. There they were “encouraged” to drink four “handles” of whiskey and six (1.5 liters) bottles of wine.

The pledges were told, “no one is leaving here until these are gone.” When the group returned to the Fraternity house, Gordie was visibly intoxicated and did not drink anymore. He was placed on a couch to “sleep it off” at approximately 11 pm. His brothers proceeded to write on his body in another fraternity ritual. Gordie was left to “sleep it off” for 10 hours before he was found dead the next morning, face down on the floor. No one had called for help, he was 18 years old.

Turning Grief into Hope

The nonprofit Gordie Foundation was founded in Dallas in 2004 by Gordie’s parents as a dedication to his memory. The Gordie foundation creates and distributes educational programs and materials to reduce hazardous drinking and hazing and promote peer intervention among young adults.  Their mission is committed to ensuring that Gordie’s story continues to impact students about the true risks of hazing and alcohol use.

There has been at least one university hazing death each year from 1969 to 2017 according to Franklin College journalism professor Hank Nuwer. Over 200 university deaths by hazing since 1839, with 40 deaths from 2007-2017 alone and alcohol poisoning is the biggest cause of death. As Gordie’s mother Leslie said, “Parents more than anything want their dead children to be remembered and for their lives to have mattered.”

In almost sixteen years, the Gordie Foundation which is now re-named Gordie.Org has made an enormous impact on hundreds of thousands of students across the country through its programs and educational efforts. If you have a college-age student, think about asking them to take the pledge to save a life, possibly their own.

Why is it that we wait to make these connections? Why is our hindsight is so crystal clear and our day-to-day vision so clouded? Why is it that we do not know the value of one’s life until it has passed? Perhaps more than a decade later, our vision is becoming clearer and we realize just how precious each life is……

Charity Matters.

 

Sharing is caring, if you feel moved or inspired, please inspire another…

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Raising Philanthropic Children

Someday has arrived

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Dr. Seuss

With so many college send-offs this week, I thought this post from last year was worth a repost.

The moment you first hold your child you do not think about the moment that you will say goodbye. We never think that far ahead. Once our children are born we open a college savings account but we don’t actually really think about college. It is like a far off goal equivalent to someday I’ll have a (fill in the blank). It’s a someday thing.

As parents, we support our children, love them, encourage them to find what they love to do and hope they can someday put it on their college resume. We tell them that they need good grades if they are ever going to go to college…someday.

We go through the pressure of high school grades, college test prep, ACTs, SATs, college applications and even college acceptances and still it feels like a someday thing. In the last few weeks, we have been buying everything for the dorm room, enjoying college send-off dinners with different groups of friends and the reality has begun to come crashing down that someday is here. Someday is literally at the door and someday is this week.

You would think since this isn’t my first rodeo saying goodbye and sending off the last of my three sons to college would get easier? It’s not, it is actually harder.

It is not that I love any of our sons differently, it is just that this is the end of the road, the last one ever! Twenty-four years of being a parent to boys under my roof and poof someday snuck in and has taken my boys, my job and what’s left of my heart.  Someday arrived and this dreaded moment is really happening.

Someday doesn’t care that time went by in a blink. Someday doesn’t care if your child is ready to go, how fantastic they are, or how much they will be missed? Someday doesn’t care but tomorrow does. Tomorrow brings with it the reality and the tears, that won’t seem to stop. Tomorrow also brings the heavy heart that feels so proud and is beyond sad in the same breath. Someday doesn’t have to walk by the empty bedroom or see the empty seat at the dinner table every day. Someday doesn’t worry about the silence at the end of the school day when no one comes bounding in asking for food full of joy. Tomorrow does.

So as I cling to the last precious moments of someday and hold my son so tight, I am deeply aware of the privilege it is to be his mom. How blessed am I to have had eighteen amazing years with this incredible human? How lucky is the world to have him? He was born to fly and born for this moment to leave the nest. If you love them set them free and so I will…..My nest will empty but just like the Dr. Seuss books I used to read him said, “Do not cry because its over, smile because it happened.”

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

The Scarlet C of COVID

“It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.”

The Scarlet Letter

My son and husband have COVID. By the time you read this “had” will be more apropos. Not to worry they are physically fine.  I am COVID free. They are only two of over four million people that have had this. The fascinating thing about COVID is not the physical ramifications but the mental. There is a Scarlet Letter C for COVID. For the first time in my life, I can relate to the character Hester Pryne from The Scarlet Letter. We have not hung a huge scarlet C in front of our house but it feels as if we might have one.

the Love-Hate Relationship with COVID Statistics

Every night for months the evening news covers the daily statistics of COVID. The number infected, tested, active cases, deaths, and the list goes on. These numbers are people. They are not numbers and there is a difference. At this writing, there have been over 140, 000 people in the United States who have died.   According to the LA Times, Floridians over 65 are dying every eight minutes, due to this horrific pandemic.

Before I begin my observations on the mental health of COVID, please note that I am in NO way stating in ANY way that being seriously ill or death is a comparison to the mental health aspects of this virus. It most obviously is not. What has been fascinating to observe is how people react and how people treat you when they know there is an active COVID case in your home.

The Human Experience and COVID

When you hear that people are all over the map with their thoughts about COVID. Pro-mask, Anti-masks, Pro-school-Anti-School. That is true. People are emotionally all over the place when it comes to COVID. Wherever you are on this is ok. I am not here to judge but here to tell you what this feels like on the receiving end. Every day for the past 12 days we have felt as if we are in the middle of a bad psychology experiment. When you tell someone your child has COVID and is safely quarantined (as are we) the reactions run the gamut. It doesn’t matter if is your family, dear friends, neighbors, or co-workers. I haven’t tried with strangers yet but maybe their reactions are better?

Our first encounter was with our neighbor who was walking his dog. My husband and I saw him from about thirty feet apart and we spoke telling him that our son has COVID. He literally ran away while suggesting a podcast for good information. His fear was real. Totally understandable but we have never had anyone run away from us before, so that was a first.

 

The Scarlet C

Dear friends have reacted with anger, shock, shamed us, questioned us, and rejected us. The anger, “How could you let your son go on a father-son boating trip in a pandemic? What did you expect would happen? You are an idiot!” For the record, every person on that trip has tested negative twice, so the source is still a mystery. Can you really get COVID from a gas pump? Think we know the answer.

Shock and awe.  Many friends are stunned and curious. Our son is the first person they have known and they have a million questions about exposure, symptoms, how we keep ourselves safe from him, quarantine, testing, and protocol. That is a whole different post on the misinformation of COVID that I will spare you all.

Shame and Shunned

To be told that we are not welcome regardless of testing, quarantine, following CDC, and doctor’s guidelines. Well, I have to admit, that one stung a bit. We have been very honest and open about the situation, obviously. Our medical advice has been excellent, all of which we have followed to the letter. Who knew that Zinc and a thousand milligrams of Vitamin C helps keep you COVID free?

However, being banned/shunned made me wonder if we actually had a Scarlet C on our home or our caller ID? It made me wonder about Hester Pyrene and truly understand how she felt. Just as the book said, “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.”  It is bad enough to be away from your other children, your family, friends, and the world for 14 days. It is not fun. It is sad, lonely, depressing, and isolating. That is for us that are “healthy” and without symptoms. I can’t imagine adding being severely ill to how people with COVID must feel?

Kindness and Compassion

To end on a positive note we have had more than a handful of amazing friends who offered to get groceries, run errands, or bring anything we needed. We had one friend drop off beautiful vegetables from her garden. One family has face-timed our son every night just to check in on him and it was honestly the highlight of his day. All of these gestures of kindness were THE best medicine. Feeling loved, connected, and cared for is what we all truly crave in life.

I have to confess that I struggled with sharing these observations.  Knowing that I am opening myself up to a million more opinions and emotions that honestly, I’m not sure I can handle after the past two weeks. However, with all of the overload of information out there I could not find anything about the human reaction to COVID. These are our experiences, perhaps not everyone’s. My hope is that when you know someone who is quarantined (and chances are you do) that you reach out with kindness, compassion, and empathy.

 

Charity Matters

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Causes

Camp in the face of COVID

Each year more than 14 million children attend camp in the United States according to the American Camp Association. Sadly, this summer most children will not be attending their camps due to the pandemic. In the United States, there are over 12,000 camps and 8,400 of those are overnight experiences. In the face of COVID, children are not getting the benefits of independence, self-confidence, and new friends which camp provides.

Leaders are Adaptable

As many of you know I run a youth leadership nonprofit and the highlight of our summer is our Summer Leadership program. Our students (6th-8th graders) leave home for the first time and spend a few nights in college dorms. They learn who they can be and where they can go…. college. However, this past March in the wake of the COVID we were unclear about the path forward. Were we going to be able to host our traditional overnight camp? The answers were not clear.

At TACSC, we teach that leaders are adaptable. So adapt is what we had to do. Throughout the months of March, April and May we planned for two programs, in-person and online. It was a bit like writing two term papers knowing that one would have to be thrown away. In mid-May, we made the decision that we were going to have to go with our new plan for camp online.

How do you provide an amazing experience online?

For thirty-eight years TACSC has taught leadership with peer teaching. College students teaching high school students and high school students teaching middle school students. Our program is a combination of camp meets classroom meets kairos.  How were going to provide this experience to three hundred students online?

First and foremost we realized that kids should not be parked in front of a screen on a summer day. They needed to be outside, riding bikes, swimming, and getting bored. So we decided that the camp would start at 3 pm and end at 8:30. That time of day when parents need a break and kids usually start saying, “I’m bored.” Our curriculum team went to work and we were off to the races.

We Did IT!

After months of planning, shipping camp in a box to 300 campers, we executed our plan. This week we took our 38-year-old program and took it online. I was beyond nervous but our college and high school staff worked for months to create a magical experience. Our students attended the equivalent of an online play (via Zoom) each day, went into their small group classrooms, played games, made new friends, and learned about leadership. At the end of the evening, students had reflection time and families came together for night prayers.

Is the online experience the same? No. Did we create connection, fun, and friendships? Yes. Did they learn? Absolutely! Most of all, we learned that in order to survive and thrive as a non-profit we needed to be adaptable. A skill not just for leaders but for all of us.

Charity Matters

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Causes

Why’d you stop me? WYSM Foundation

“Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.”

Anthony D’Angelo

I don’t usually repost interviews but with so much attention lately on policing and communities, I thought this conversation was one worth revisiting. A year ago, I was at the StageCoach music festival and got separated from my husband. Standing next to me was a former college football player, a big man with an even bigger smile and heart. This stranger, named Jason Lehman, is a Long Beach Police Officer and nonprofit founder of  Why’d You Stop Me? and he also found my husband in the large crowd that night. We exchanged information and spoke shortly after about his work and journey from law enforcement to nonprofit founder and his mission to bring people together.  Such an inspirational man and story….the world needs people like Jason and his team now more than ever.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about What WYSM is and does?

Jason Lehman: We are an empowerment educational organization that works to help build and strengthen relationships between the police and the community. We do that in scenario involved training by impacting six different aspects of a community. Not only do we provide education but we provide a three hundred and sixty-degree approach by bringing a police officer and an ex-felon to team-teach these incredible messages of peace to police officers, schools, and communities.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start  WYSM Foundation?

Jason Lehman: I think I had three Ah-Ha moments and two of them are the most valuable. The first one happened in 2009 when I was working undercover in Gang and Violent Crime Suppression Team for the City of Long Beach. Working on this Gang and Violent Crime Suppression Team we did a bunch of things and one of them was we bought drugs from gang members who were selling them. There was an undercover drug deal that went bad. That drug deal ended up with me having to fight for my life and at the end of the fight, only one person walked out alive. Immediately after this happened, I thought to myself something could have been done differently. I didn’t yet know what that meant but I really tried to figure out what that meant. I spent two years trying.

At the end of it, I was found to have used the force necessary in the situation and my name was cleared, but that didn’t completely help. I spent two years seeing psychologists, dealing with family issues, and trying to figure out how or why all of this was happening. I was found to have done the right thing and been fit of mind but this justifiable homicide was a horrible situation for me. That was my first AH-Ha moment. In December 2011,  some informants tipped us off that there was going to be a gang hit on my life. It turns out that the person that died in the drug enforcement situation was a gang leader and the gang had spent two years plotting how they were going to ambush and kill me.

In hearing this situation I walked into a classroom at a local high school knowing that there were students in that classroom that were affiliated with the gang trying to kill me.  I walked in and spent about an hour telling them how scared I was and how much I struggled with power. The kids were listening and they were with me, they knew me as Tiny, the gang cop that worked in their neighborhood.

One kid at the end of the program raised his hand and changed my world forever. He said, “Hey Tiny, you talked about how scared you are but you haven’t said a word about me? Do you remember me? Two years ago you arrested me with a gun in my waistband, you made me crawl through the rain and layout in front of you. Did you ever think about who was standing next to me when you made me do that? My girlfriend. Do you know how it made me feel when you laid me down and put your knee in my back in front of my girlfriend? Did you ever stop to realize that gun wasn’t for you but for a rival gang? Did you understand I was raised never to be disrespected in front of a woman? I have had visions of hurting you for two years but after one hour of listening to you explaining things and what police officers go through. This is the first time I can ever say that I respect you.”

I walked out of the classroom and the principal said, “What’s the name of your program?” and I said, I didn’t have a program, I am going back to being a cop. The principal said, “We have a new website and I want to mention your work on it what do I call it? I said, ” The kids always ask me why did you stop me? So why don’t you call it that, Why’d You Stop Me? That was how we came to be.

The second AH- Ha moment was on August 10th, 2014 when we had our first nonprofit event. We had 200 hundred plus people coming and we had just gotten our 501c3.  I had not been watching the news so I didn’t know that Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, MO by a police officer. We were the first organization of its kind in this country that could unite a police officer and an ex-felon to teach a message of peace. We knew that night that there was really something that WYSM had to offer and that is how we came to be.

Charity Matters: What are the biggest challenges you face at WYSM?

Jason Lehman: The biggest challenge has been funding. The grant process can be very frustrating. It is hard to measure the amount of change that your work is doing and grant funders want to see the measurement. When we first started the organization, I worked with my family to raise over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to fund this work. I did this because I care enough about this organization to try and grow this message.  The other challenge is scaling the organization. We can’t scale without the funding, those are two biggest challenges.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Jason Lehman: I think I have two fuel sources. The first one is the change that you see in the community members after they receive this training. We have a million amazing stories. One of them is about a young girl named Jasmine Simpson, she was placed in the foster care system for years and was dealing with some problems. Jasmine went to school two days in an entire semester and on the second day I had her in class teaching about positive outcomes to situations and in that messaging, I pulled her up on stage to re-enact a scenario to allow her to make some decisions. A few weeks later the school resource officer calls me and said you need to read what Jasmine wrote. She had submitted a poem in her English class that said, “I used to hate you but now I want to be just like you.”

The second fuel source is when we train police officers and talk about being kind for 2 minutes during every stop. Often times as police officers we don’t find time to be kind.  After a law enforcement presentation, I was approached by a Sergeant of 27 years and he told me, ” I just arrested someone a week ago and I vividly remember not saying a word to them. I remember them asking for air and to roll the window down, I remember them trying to talk about their problems but all I could tell them was to shut up. After your speakers came and spoke to us and asked us what it would be like if our own children were arrested and treated this way? How would we want our children to be treated by the police if they were arrested? He said to me after hundreds and hundreds of arrests I have never humanized one and I will never do that again after your training. More than that I will do my best to ensure that everyone I supervise in our department treats every person we arrest as a human being.” Those are the types of stories that fuel me to do the work that I do.

Charity Matters: When do you know that you have made a difference?

Jason Lehman: An individual is affected by our training when an organization brings us in. So a payday for me is when an organization wants to embrace the training. Whether it’s a school district, a police department or one of the county’s probation agencies., that is a payday for us. We want to change behavior and now we know we have an audience, a captive audience. We get on their level if we are talking to a group of prisoners we talk about their mind being free from the walls of a prison.

When I talk to police officers I talk to them about being kind to someone to make it easier for the next police officer that pulls someone over. They get that. Being able to see the organizations buy into the message and then being able to see the individuals shift, that’s when we know we are doing good stuff.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about some of the impact you have had at WYSM?

Jason Lehman: We are the only nationally endorsed program by the fraternal order of police. We have 380,000 police officers supporting our organization, we are the only organization in the state that’s been called the best practice organization by Senator Harris. Right now WYSM operates in 19 cities and five states.

More importantly, since we started doing this work that human beings see other human beings differently. When they see other human beings differently they have less opportunity to judge them for something they are not. We are now able to see more of the human being behind the condition in order to allow them to grow and thrive, the power happens when we see kindness in people where kindness didn’t exist before. Our work teaches people to cooperate with the authority to achieve their greatness.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Jason Lehman: When starting WYSM I learned about myself. Back in 2008, I made a bad decision in my early years as a cop, that could have had me charged federally for excessive force. I am fortunate not to have been charged and having gone through this was horrible. In creating this movement and mission I have been able to hold myself to the highest accountability I can think of with WYSM. I am now in a position of leadership where I can model positive behavior for others and teach others to model behavior for those that come after them.

Charity Matters: If you had one wish for WYSM what would It be?

Jason Lehman: I have two wishes, one is for the community side and the other is for the police side. On the community side, I would like to replace the 7th grade home economics class with a class called, Cooperating with Authority to Achieve Greatness.

Police Officers take the lives of more approximately 1,000 community members each year is a big deal. Learning how to cooperate with the police and create safer contacts is more important than home economics.  I think the fact a police officer is dying in the line of duty once every 62 hours in this country is also too much.  Learning how to build safer police/community contacts is more important than learning to boil water. Police officers, our protectors, kill themselves at four times the level of a normal individual. If police/community conflict and violence were reduced, I believe we could reduce police trauma and ultimately see a reduction in police suicides.

On the flip side, I would like police officers to see value in what they typically view as hug a thug training. I hope that police officers see value in this training and that this training will spread across the entire country. Those would be my two wishes.

Charity Matters: Is there anything else you want to share about your work at WYSM?

Jason Lehman: I think one of the most valuable and important assets of this training is that my partner is somebody who is a college graduate, was 2016 Long Beach’s Hero of the Year beating out firefighters and police officers. This man whose name is Rodney Coulter spent 29 years of his life in prison or on parole or on probation. He has been arrested 39 times by the Long Beach Police Department and his cousin is the person whose life I took in that undercover drug deal. Rodney and I are best friends and we stand side by side in unity and team-teach. He is incredible. His line is, “I never thought a cop and a Crip could be best friends.”  Rodney teaches gang members why cops are good and I teach the police why people like Rodney are good. The power happens when together we see kindness in people where kindness didn’t exist before.

Charity Matters

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Uncategorized

COVID, Caterpillars and Courage

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

Plato

 

As the world opens and we all slowly come back out of our cocoons like caterpillars who turned to butterflies navigating life from a somewhat different perspective than ninety days ago…I find myself flying above my former self in search of my mojo. The metamorphosis has happened to us all. A mere three months ago I was high functioning, multi-tasking, get it done sort of person. I could be on a conference call while emptying the dishwasher, texting, and juggle a multitude of tasks all of which made me feel successful, productive, and most importantly busy. Always busy.

COVID

Every pre-COVID moment from the 5:45 am wake up until 11 pm at night was scheduled, programed, crammed full of tasks, meetings, calls, and to-dos. Then after March 13th all of that changed. The first few weeks of quarantine were rainy, cozy, and almost felt like a holiday break with everyone home. I have always worked from home so that wasn’t anything new to me.

However, having the whole family at home working and going to school remotely was new. Making fifteen meals a day again was new. No early mornings at the gym and navigating new ways to manage exercise and stress were different. And as each little piece of my previously scheduled life eroded so did my mojo. Like sand in my hand, it just slipped away one grain at a time.

Caterpillar

The early morning dash to the gym became coffee in bed until seven. The online workouts became less about exercise and more about noticing every home improvement needed in the room. Once the “workout” was over, I stayed in my workout clothes until late in the day. Why not?  There was nowhere to go.

Lip gloss and makeup were reserved for Zoom meetings only. The days to do list became shorter and shorter until they didn’t exist. Time and urgency seemed to disappear. The cocoon became a safe harbor from all of the chaos outside.

Courage

Then suddenly, the announcement came that the world would begin to reopen. Little by little our cocoons were broken open. Now that we were “free” to go, I wasn’t sure that I wanted too. My former self, the one that made the cozy and now organized cocoon, would have boldly dashed out into this new world without fear and a to-do list a mile long. However, my post-COVID self was a fragile butterfly that came out ever so slowly was not the same creature pre-quarantine. The mojo and courage were nowhere to be found. A metamorphosis had occurred.

The fear lingered and my fragile wings slowly began to flutter outside of the cocoon. Ready to explore but there was no urgency or speed. Time had dissipated, what mattered before no longer made sense. Schedules, planning, and lists all seemed like things of the past.

The courage came to be, and stay in the present. Slowly, the new butterfly saw all the beauty around, the faces of her family, and the beauty of each moment. The mojo was gone and replaced with what matters….health, family, love, security, and faith. The butterfly’s voice said, “What good are wings without the courage to fly?” Ever so slowly the butterfly fluttered out into a brave new world.

 

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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Charity Matters Quotes

Another lap around the sun

“The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”

Ernst Nightingale

Today marks another lap around the sun. Another year has passed and there is another candle on the cake. More than the passage of time or the counting of candles a new year brings another opportunity for growth. A chance to do better, to be better, to learn, and to try harder.

With every passing year, I see the hourglasses sand falling faster and realize that each precious grain is a moment. A moment to choose how to spend our time. Each grain is a gift that must be opened, treasured, celebrated, and used to the greatest good. It all sounds so simple and yet it isn’t. The grains fall so fast, the time passes, and then we ask ourselves how did I miss that moment? We find ourselves saying, “Where did the time go?” As the sand keeps on falling…

…

I chuckle when I think of the opening line from the soap opera my mom used to watch in the ’70s that said, “As the sand in an hourglass these are Days of Our Lives…”  Who knew that all of these years later I would find wisdom in something I once thought so silly? I think that is the pursuit, to continue to search for wisdom, for guidance, for light, and for love.

My life is so full of blessings of health, family, and dear friendships that I must continue to use the time remaining, whatever that may be, to use my gifts to be a voice for others. To be a messenger of hope. To help the helpers and to serve those who serve us.  My birthday wish is clear and I am committing that I will continue to do better, to try harder, to learn more, and to be better in this mission.

A birthday is a gift, just as a day or a moment is….another opportunity to use each grain of sand towards the greatest good. Another day to grow, to learn, to give….

 

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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