“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
Anonymous
For almost a decade, I have written weekly for Charity Matters. Sharing the stories of the remarkable humans, who make our world better, is truly my passion and brings me such joy. Each of you has become a part of this growing community of people who crave goodness and positivity. When I meet you and discover the causes that you are supporting because of one of our stories or your volunteer efforts because of something you read here, it is the ultimate gift. Honestly, nothing brings me more joy than inspiring others to serve.
Sometimes, the challenge in being both a messenger of service and in running a nonprofit full-time is getting the stories out week after week. So this next week I am taking a little pause and vacation, something Charity Matters rarely does. A moment to catch my breath, refill the tank and to think about some next steps for this platform and community that I love.
So, if we miss a week know that we will be back ready to inspire you after a little spring break, sunshine, sea and sand. Thank you for continuing to spread the word about our work and making the world a better place.
CHARITY MATTERS.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
So often in my life, multiple people point me in a singular direction and if I pay close enough attention I get the clue. A girlfriend of mine has been telling me about My Friend’s Place, a youth homeless organization, for years. A girl I work out with at the gym and her husband are very involved and have mentioned My Friend’s Place to me a number of times. Then over the holidays, I met a board member from My Friend’s Place who introduced me recently to the lovely Executive Director, Heather Carmichael. We finally connected and I am so thrilled we did. Heather’s insight and perspective on what is happening to these young people who are experiencing homelessness was so insightful and inspiring. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what My Friend’s Place does?
Heather Carmichael: My Friend’s Place is a 32-year-old organization that is a change maker in young people’s lives who are in the throes of experiencing homelessness. We are about creating a connection so that young people might begin to trust this community of support. We are a safe place to be in their crisis and a place that can help them stay connected to themselves, who they are and who they want to be in their future.
We want them to see that their current situation is hopefully circumstantial and that when their homelessness comes to an end that they are still who they are and want to be. If these young people can survive the trauma, make meaning and find opportunity then what they can contribute to our community is profound.
We try to help these young people to craft a whole identity. Developmentally, at 18 they have little or no training, minimum wage jobs do not resolve their problems. Living on the streets can be a very hostile experience trying to navigate life at age 18, 20, or 24. We do everything that a family or a friend would do to support someone at that age to find their way.
My Friend’s Place Founder Steve LePore and Executive Director, Heather Carmichael
Charity Matters: Tell us about how My Friend’s Place started?
Heather Carmichael: In 1988 Steve LePore and Craig Scholz saw a rise in youth homelessness in Hollywood. The draw of Hollywood and the entertainment business has always made Hollywood a lure for many. In the mid-1980s Steve and Craig started to address the issue with a very grassroots organization originally called The Lighthouse.
They were scrappy opening up the back of their trunk to give kids something to eat, someone to relate to and listen to them and then eventually a place to stay. Hunger was one of the main issues then. Today we have taken the work that they began and expanded to a staff of thirty that provides legal aid, mental health, a host of outreach programs to create a one-stop community center.
We now serve 1400 youth a year with about seventy-five to eighty coming in each day to eat, rest, shower, receive clothing and programming. We address both the immediate crisis and their long term goals and needs. Doing what any family would do for one of their children who was trying to get on their feet. We want to help these young people with their pain and find their potential of who they can be.
Charity Matters: How did you get involved with Mt Friend’s Place?
Heather Carmichael:I arrived at My Friend’s Place over twenty years ago, in the mid-1990s. I was working with youth runaways in San Francisco and doing a suicide assessment of programs with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and saw first hand the work that was being done for youth homeless and how young people responded to different environments. An opportunity surfaced when Steve LePore stepped away and a Clinical Director position opened up at My Friend’s Place in 2000 and I came on board and have been here ever since. I knew that I loved the way that My Friend’s Place engaged with the young people but what I didn’t understand was that this would become a place where who I am as a human being would match my professionalism in such a deep way.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Heather Carmichael: There are so many. The landscape around addressing homelessness is under such dynamic change. For years, no one spoke about homelessness and now we have an epidemic crisis. Communities are overwhelmed and LA is in such pain about this. How do we continue to engage communities in meaningful ways so that we maintain momentum towards a solution?
I feel very grateful to be doing the work at My Friend’s Place, where our main priority is to resolve these young people’s homelessness while continuing to create meaningful opportunities to see the impact and to feel involved. How do we scale to that in a meaningful way? A multitude of things got us here and it will take a multitude of things to fix this. We need to create meaningful opportunities to get our community and supporters involved in understanding and being a part of the solution.
There needs to be advocacy to ensure that these young people are not lumped in with adults. How these young people entered into this horrific situation is hopefully just a moment in time and very different for each person. We have folks with jobs and young intact families but with rent increases can no longer afford a place to live, if you can re-stabilize a family like that they will probably be able to continue on with a healthy stable life. Then you have folks with mental health issues and the intervention is different than with that intact family. Then you have someone experiencing domestic violence and that intervention is different. The Foster Care kids come out ill-prepared for adulthood without family, or any community support to manage their transition into stable adulthood. There are so many issues and what is the right intervention for one person is always different. for another. We really have to be thoughtful about what is the right way to support and help these individuals for their particular crisis and not approach this only as a housing crisis.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Heather Carmichael: I think understanding that I can be a part of a community that can create connection and opportunity that can be a game-changer for one young person, a hundred or thousands…it just blows my mind. To be a part of that moment in time when a young person makes a connection. It is like watching your child take their first steps and watching that is what it feels like. The only difference is bringing the community in to watch it and to be a part of it.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Heather Carmichael: My primary interaction with our young people is my foundation for this work. I yearn for this work but now I feel that my role is to bring the community in to witness the work we are doing. Recently we had a young woman, in her early twenties, who was in great distress. To be there to witness, the vulnerability, to hold the pain and the possibility of something different. This is really about being a part of a community, keeping us connected to beholding one another. I think this is a role that both faith-based communities and nonprofits share, keeping us connected and beholding one another.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and What has your impact been?
Heather Carmichael: The 1400 youth who come to My Friend’s Place each year are impacted by feeling safe, cared for and by the opportunity to partner with us to change their lives. The thousands of people who come to be a part of a transformational community. Both are super valuable impacts. We are all the same in our desire to feel whole and to contribute. Every day we work to make the ordinary extraordinary.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Heather Carmichael: I have had to challenge myself to be seen, to step on stage, to walk that carpet, that goes on the radio or television and to develop an extroverted part of myself. That being seen does not drive me but I have learned to express my love and confidence in what happens at My Friend’s Place. Our mission and our youth. fuel me but being out front does not, I want the spotlight on this mission.
How has this journey changed you?
Heather Carmichael: I am so steeped in this work. Who I am as a person is who I am in all parts of my life. I feel very grateful to be where I am so I can be who I am. My intention was never to be the Executive Director and I stepped into this role with great hesitation but my love for these young people won.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for My Friend’s Place, what would that be?
Heather Carmichael: My dream for My Friend’s Place is to be resourced in order to resource the staff and to swiftly resolve the crisis of youth homelessness. My dream for our young people is to achieve their dreams.
CHARITY MATTERS.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
The founder of my elementary and high school knew what she was doing over a hundred years ago when she made the school’s motto Actions Not Words. That motto has defined my life along with thousands of alumni over the years. It is always so exciting to meet a fellow alumna and someone who grew up with the same philosophy of using their gifts to make the world better. Earlier this week I sat down with Marina Marmolejo, a recent graduate student from Yale with a Masters in Public Health, who decided to stay in New Haven to start a nonprofit to help homeless youth. An inspiring conversation about the launch of her nonprofit and App, DreamKit and beyond amazing what someone so young can accomplish to impact so many lives in such a beautiful way.
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what DreamKit does?
Marina Marmolejo: We are reinventing technology to end youth homelessness. DreamKit is a web-based App for youth homelessness that supports youth professionally, financially and socially. Specifically through two main functions. The first is to motivate homeless youth, ages 12-25 to attend events, classes, and activities that will help them to escalate out of homelessness. We pay them for their efforts in DreamKit points that can, in turn, be used to “purchase ” gift cards. The youth are essentially earning money to meet their basic needs such as food, clothes, hygiene products. This is our short term solution.
The second part of the App is the long term solutions that are created from the profiles and information gathered on their Dream Kit App that will directly reflect the activities that the youth are attending and track their progress. We then share this information with potential employers, with landlords, mentors in the community to show their positive behavior and the steps the youth are taking to move in a positive direction. The third piece is to engage and connect them to society and the community in trying to reduce the stigma associated with homelessness. Dream Kit is a platform to showcase progress transformation and resiliency among a very at-risk and marginalized population.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start DreamKit?
Marina Marmolejo: Living in Los Angeles homeless is so in your face. People become callus to homelessness because it is so overwhelming and we feel helpless because there are no clear solutions. Living in LA people cannot help to feel guilty. Something inside of me that made me want to use my skills to make a difference and I honestly had no clue how. Then I took a course when I was at Loyola Marymount University on homelessness that spoke to the problem of homelessness from a mental and physical health perspective and public policy perspective.
Part of the class included living homeless for 3 days and 4 nights on the streets of Skid Row and in shelters. I remember the fear, the fear of being so alone, fear of checking our bags and not knowing about our belongings, which was normal shelter protocol. Fear because we were woken up one night and told to leave the shelter because there were too many registered sex offenders in the shelter and the street would be safer. I remember seeing shelter students my age doing their homework and for the first time seeing the juxtaposition between me as a college student, who has been so lucky, and then to witness youth who just were not as lucky as birth. This experience was my tipping point and Ah-Ha moment when the light bulb went off. You don’t really get it until you are in it and I was barely even in it and it was shocking.
So I started doing research at SPY (Safe Place for Youth) in Venice while I finished my undergraduate degree and decided to get my Master’s at Yale in Public Health. When I got to New Haven I got a job at an organization called PAWS (Poverty Alleviation through Washing Soles) where we provided shoes, socks, foot care, hygiene for the homeless. Professor Yusuf read the article about our work and reached out to me. From our conversations, DreamKit was created to track the progress of the homeless much like a Fitbit giving behavioral nudges and creating a points-based economy for homeless youth. We hired a development team and launched our App last week.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Marina Marmolejo: DreamKit is not a consumer-facing product that has one customer like selling t-shirts but more of a linear pipeline. DreamKit is so reliant on multiple different communities for it to be successful which is absolutely the hardest part. The biggest challenge is gaining trust with our youth, our service providers, mobile employers. How do we connect all of these partners later down the road with our youth?
In order to end youth homelessness or even to attempt to it takes all hands on deck just to manage our fifteen person team, our partners, stakeholders and trying to take care of myself and protecting my energy as well. Working with this population reminds me that my own stresses seem small.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Marina Marmolejo: Two of the people on our team, Aaron and Ashley, are formerly homeless. I meet with them multiple times a week and hearing their testimonials is what keeps me going. Last week one of our students said, “I’ve never been around so much positivity before.” The work that I’m doing with Adam and Ashley gives me so many Ah-Ha moments. This mutually beneficial relationship makes me feel that I am in the right place at the right time and watching them grow spiritually and emotionally through their work at DreamKit. They absolutely keep me going.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Marina Marmolejo: For me moving the needle has been the incredible support from the New Haven community to support me and this work in this very new opportunity. My Ah-Ha moments happen when someone says they have read about DreamKit and for me moving the needle forward means that we are infiltrating the way that people think about youth homelessness and that we are creating space for DreamKit and shifting mindsets on how we can be creative for solutions on homeless youth.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had? What has your impact been?
Marina Marmolejo: First, the way we are treating the homeless top-down through government programs and DreamKit is funding and resourcing from the ground up. The metric is if you do X then you will get Y. We are exploring the bottom-up approach. We are paying the homeless whether we like it or not. If we are paying for the homeless regardless of then introducing interventions when they are young helps us create a new pathway to prevent them from ending up in systems such as prisons or hospitals in the long term.
We might as well put the money in early to use it as a positive reward-based system as opposed to paying for long term prison stays. It is exhilarating to know that if you give people opportunities for positive behavior then how does that impact larger systems like health care or the criminal justice system. As a society, we are really good at tracking negative behaviors but not the reverse. DreamKit introduces a whole new data set on positive metrics.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for DreamKit, what would that be?
Marina Marmolejo: I would love to have proof of concept for DreamKit and be able to scale this to other cities. Essentially, I would love to be able to go to other urban markets and have them leverage the App to operate DreamKit in their own cities. Tech makes this scaleable and people do not realize that these youth have phones. Sixty-five percent of our youth have phones and the other thirty-five percent qualify for free phones through government programs.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Marina Marmolejo: Overall, being able to code-switch. I find myself moving from marketing to research, from business to grant writing. The lesson has been to be agile and switch really quickly.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Marina Marmolejo: I have been in academic institutions my whole life. You learn, you study and give back. I have learned that if something doesn’t exist you are allowed to create it. I am ok with being ok that they don’t exist. I know I have the ability to create jobs and opportunities. We are allowed to create new ideas for our most vulnerable populations and that is what matters.
Charity Matters.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of holding on and letting go.”
Havlock Ellis
2020 began like all New Years with hopes, wishes and dreams for the new beginning and the decade, it has been a difficult month for so many of my dear friends. There has been enormous loss, sudden and unexpected change, serious health issues and a host of challenges that were not in the dream category. I originally wrote this post six years ago and sadly it seems appropriate to reshare now. I do want you all to know that I do have a few amazing interviews in the cue and I promise that February will bring more incredible introductions and inspiration. Somehow they just didn’t feel like the right thing to share right now.
Twelve years ago I had a phone call that changed my life, a car accident, death, and nothing was simply ever the same after that call. A dear friend just received that same call and so it all comes flooding back…the pain, the loss, the heartbreak that feels like it will never end….it is simply too much. There are simply no words….
As I struggle with how to hold up my friend, I find myself thinking about loss and growth. I think many of us feel that growth comes in tiny layers added up over time and that each day’s journey gets us a little closer to inner-growth. I have a different theory.
I believe life is like an earthquake where huge jolts cause cataclysmic shifts like tectonic plates to our souls. In nature, these shifts result in mountains. Inside each of us is a similar experience. When the rocking stops we somehow come out shifted. Our vision becomes clearer, we see what is important for the first time, we learn gratitude in everything and the growth is as monumental as a mountain. It is the growth of our soul.
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.”
When I sat down to write this week about the soul, I had no idea how I would conclude. I certainly didn’t envision this, but as I struggle and question why? I don’t know why an earthquake has leveled a family, I can only pray that the shift will bring the strength, foundation, and the beauty of a mountain to each of them.
These are simply words when there really are none…
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Today we celebrate and honor the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through a national day of service. This is the 25th anniversary of a day of service that celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy. Many refer to MLK Day as a day “on” rather than a day off. Today’s holiday is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service encouraging all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities.
There are a variety of volunteer opportunities if you are not sure where to start, here are a few ideas:
Volunteer Match has an incredible list of volunteer opportunities across the country today.
You can go the National Day of Service site for a list of volunteer opportunities by zip code.
A family go-to for families with young children looking for age-appropriate volunteering projects is Project Giving Kids.
Running a youth leadership organization we talk all year to our students about being a servant leader. We teach our students that they can not lead unless they serve. When we ask these middle school students to give us examples of true servant leaders Martin Luther King is always at the top of their list. We are never too old or too young to serve and if it isn’t today, no pressure there is always someone in need of a little help.
So take a peek at some of these great opportunities to get involved and ask yourself, “What are you doing for others?”
“The eyes are the window of the soul.” English Proverb
I don’t usually repurpose stories but this one was more than worth sharing and is truly all about 2020 vision. I turned on the TV shortly after New Years to find this story about a young boy named Jonathan Jones. Jonathan was born color blind, as are 300 million people. One in 12 boys in the United States each year is born color blind. Can you even imagine a world without color? What is a sunset like without it? In November Jonathan was given a special pair of glasses that gave him the ability to see color for the first time. The youtube video below went viral.
What happened next was what I wanted to share. Instead of just receiving the gift that gave Jonathan color vision, he wanted to pay it forward. Jonathan and his mom, Carole decided to start a Go Fund Me page to raise funds to provide even more glasses for other kids just like him. They asked for $350 donation on their Go Fund Me Page, which would pay for one pair of glasses. The first night Jonathan’s page was already at $1,000.
A few weeks have passed and at last report, Jonathan had raised more than $35,000. When the company that makes the glasses, EnChroma, heard about the story they committed to matching his donation which is already well over 130 pairs of glasses or a world full of color for so many deserving people. True 2020 vision.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”
Scott Adams
Say what you will about social media but sometimes it brings amazing people together. A while back I was commenting on a LinkedIn post about Kelli Kelly, you may remember her from Hand to Hold in Austin? A fellow Texan, named Andra Liemandt, also commented on the post and her company read The Kindness Campaign. I was naturally intrigued and of course, it was a nonprofit.
I am not a cyberstalker I promise but Andra’s LinkedIn intrigued me. She had a career in large corporate account management and is the founder and drummer of the Mrs, a pop-rock band that has been on Good Morning America and featured in a host of magazines and opened for Bon Jovi. Naturally, I needed to know more. So I reached out to her and we connected via phone this past week for an amazing conversation that I hope leaves you as inspired about kindness as I was. What better way to start a New Year and decade than with kindness?
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The Kindness Campaign does?
Andra Liemandt: We are on a mission to normalize emotional health. We all know that bullying, loneliness, and isolation exists but instead of allowing them to go unchecked we provide positive and acceptable tools that really promote emotional health. At the heart of what The Kindness Campaign (TKC) does it aims to create societal change by teaching emotional awareness, empathy, community and most importantly the development of building a healthy positive self-image. The place where we all tear ourselves down the most is with ourselves and that self-image is really where we try to build people up. Bullying has gone beyond the walls of our schools and now we need more help to access our teens and that is why we are building out tools to do that. That is exactly what TKC does.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start The Kindness Campaign?
Andra Liemandt: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens. Several years ago this touched my life in a very powerful and profound way when a dear friend of ours took her own life and she was just 12 years old and it was a direct result of bullying. There was no path for me to start a nonprofit or any inkling that I would be sitting here five years later talking to you about this. That event changed my life forever and was the catalyst for an ongoing healing process with my daughters.
We just couldn’t get our heads around what had happened. As a mom of two girls, I was terrified that something could happen to them. I began worrying what if my daughters felt alienated and I didn’t know, what if there was a bully, so many fears popped into my head. So I started a feelings journal where the girls and I could discuss emotions like grief and anger. From there the project grew to a general feelings journal, which I copied and took into my daughter’s school. Before I knew it the principal asked for a copy of my homemade journal and then shared them with four other schools. In 2015, we launched The Kindness Campaign as a 501c3. It was really something I was being led by and I just keep putting one foot in front of the other as I feel called to do today as this journey keeps going.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Andra Liemandt: Besides the fact that I am working against the second largest cause of death in teens? That is the real challenge. Since the beginning when we started out as this simple little feelings journal, we then just scaled very quickly. By far I think one of our biggest challenges has been ensuring that we are scaling the right way being able to meet the demands for the tools that are being created. I think every entrepreneur has to approach growth differently and because of the nature of our work, it is extremely important that we are serving our end-users, schools, and educators in the most quality way possible.
We have been super laser-focused on proof of concept along with our programs and curriculum. Our biggest challenge is trying to meet the needs of those that we serve. We receive 150 requests nationwide and are currently serving 40,000 students in 82 schools. This year our curriculum is available nationally through Erin Condren’s stores and the TKC website so we are excited about that. The reality is that the need is always going to be greater than anyone can meet. Partnerships like Erin Condren’s and so many other amazing corporate partners make this work possible in building emotional health a reality.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Andra Liemandt: When I got into this work my motivation was simply to save lives. I carry my friend’s daughter in my heart always. Being able to give families and teachers solutions to address emotional health and to have conversations is so powerful and fulfilling. I was at the gym recently and a woman came up to me that I didn’t know and she thanked me for connecting her and her daughter. The woman said, “You don’t understand we did not speak the way we are speaking now because of the tools you gave us. I can not thank you enough.” We are creating tangible tools for emotional health and I believe that the work we are doing now will have an impact on suicide statistics in the future.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Andra Liemandt: There are so many sweet stories, emails from parents and teachers. We have an event called the KIND5 and it is a four-hour program where I walk away feeling moved by the day and from the difference we have made in our student’s lives. I receive notes telling me about how impactful it was and I’ll never know the complete one hundred percent impact but I do feel that there is trajectory for these students who might not ever have this type of opportunity. We did one recently called I Am Enough and we had our signature activation, the Magic Mirror , which is one of our tools. When I am there with the kids it always reminds me that we are making a difference. It is not about me, it is about the tools and opportunities we create. I am simply a vessel that allows these opportunities to flow through me and happen.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had? What has your impact been?
Andra Liemandt: I believe there is a touchpoint from the first time somebody ever felt kindness to when it actually gets played out years from now. What I do know is that from the very first day that I knew this (TKC) was going to be something more than me and my daughters in my apartment working on the feelings journal and was going to become a nonprofit because it was growing so fast. I said then,”that our work needed to be measurable.” I knew then that we needed surveys to collect data and I do believe that there are direct outcomes from our work. In doing that we have had proof of concept tracking data from the beginning when we were one school and then five and now 82 schools. I do actually believe that there are indirect outcomes to measure emotional health.
We serve over 40,000 students nationally with our online programming. We just had our second annual House of Kindness event, we don’t do benefits but house parties and we had a great success which will go along way in serving our students. We launched a national PSA before every AMC movie in the fall because we have been so blessed with incredible partnerships. We have a national reach because of our online programming, which we are incredibly proud of. Success is measured in so many different ways.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Andra Liemandt: I’m a big dreamer. Personally, my dream is for TKC’s reach to be so large, that schools and families can access us anywhere. We mean it when we say we want to raise a generation where emotional fitness is normal – as normal as physical fitness, and just as mainstream, too. We have life-changing tools for students, and we’re constantly innovating. So, my dream is to put these resources within reach for anyone, because children from all walks of life deserve access to this critical health metric.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Andra Liemandt: Life lessons evolve as you are on the journey. Where I am today on this journey and what we talk about at TKC is what if emotional wounds showed up on our bodies the way that physical wounds do? We would all take this conversation a lot more seriously. I think about this on a daily basis.
When I look at my life today, my biggest life lesson is from the Magic Mirror (video above) and that the life lesson is that everyone wants to be seen and heard. The Magic Mirror has also taught me that attention is a really important healer. When we feel safe and secure we then have space for empathy. I have learned that through kindness organic outcomes from emotional health happen when we feel connected to one another, then we feel seen and heard. Very often the impulse to bully just drops away. When we feel safe and secure we have emotional space for empathy which can be taught and that is huge. All of these lessons are the lessons that have added up in these past six years.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Andra Liemandt: This journey has allowed me to think in a deeper, calmer and more empathetic way for others. It has allowed me to give myself grace and forgiveness.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
C. S. Lewis
Well, it is here. A new year and a new decade. A new chance to look back at what 2019 brought you in the way of challenges, gifts, and direction. Now a time to look at where you are going in 2020. What is your vision for 2020? As Germany Kent said, “Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction.” Something I believe in but first, we need to figure out what we want to do?
2019 is so last year but I am proud of the continued growth Charity Matters had. We interviewed more nonprofit founders than ever before. Our social media and email subscriptions continue to climb so thank you to all of you for sharing this work with your friends and family. My goal continues to be to get the word out about these remarkable humans who work to serve others.
Last year, I committed to each of you that I was going to be brave and put myself out there more and I did. It was a year of loss with our youngest son off to college and one of my dearest friends moving away. With that loss came new opportunities for growth. That book I said, I would write when my son left for college, I started. This year the goal is to finish it. Trying to stretch and challenge myself in new directions is exciting and terrifying all at once. That is what life is all about…moving ahead.
This year I am committing to finding new ways to get the message out about these amazing people I bring to you each week. The book, possibly a podcast and any other platform that helps me shout from the rooftops just how amazing and good people really are.
So far, I have reviewed what went great last year and what didn’t and am still pulling my full list of resolutions together. List aside, this first week of January is time to pause and reflect on what matters and how we want to achieve that. More than anything I am immensely grateful for love, health, family, faith and friends. The best way I know to show that gratitude is to channel that abundance and love into service. So for 2020, I commit to gratitude, to giving of myself, to being brave and to spreading the love….which is just another word for charity.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“Nothing is given to man on earth – struggle is built into the nature of life, and conflict is possible – the hero is the man who lets no obstacle prevent him from pursuing the values he has chosen.”
Andrew Bernstein
There is nothing I love more than meeting new people. To me, each new person that I come across is like unwrapping a gift. I love learning people’s stories and what makes them tick. Meeting someone new is a never-ending source of joy for me. Some people collect certain things, I collect people because to me they are what matter. This past year I am so excited about the people that WE met at Charity Matters. When I meet amazing people so do you. Who wants to open a gift and not share it? So before we look ahead to 2020 I wanted to take a brief moment and look back at some of the extraordinary humans and their organizations that came into our lives this year.
We began 2019 with Tracy’s Dogs. The founders of Tracy’s Dogs, Tracy and Scott Whyatt, a Texas-based nonprofit that rescues thousands of dogs and partners them with new homes said to me, “People don’t find dogs, dogs find people.” Two weeks after that interview a dog from Texas named Lucy found us. An unexpected blessing of 2019 and the gift that keeps on giving. As they say, “Charity starts at home.”
photo credit: Classic Kids
Animals were not the only last legacy from the year. We met amazing women who turned their life challenges into thriving nonprofits. The remarkable Becky Fawcett who learned what it cost to adopt a child and turned it into her life’s mission to help families fund adoption with Help Us Adopt.
Jill Ippolito who showed us the power of love and healing with her inspirational work in juvenile halls with trauma-informed yoga with her nonprofit Uprising Yoga. Teaching and training minors in jail to learn how to process their trauma and break the cycle of pain. Jill used her past experience to help reform prisons across the country and heal generations of children who have experienced trauma and inflicted it on others to learn a new path towards healing. Jill is a truly lovely human and reminded me that whatever gift it is that we have, we need to share it with the world.
Then there was Marcella Johnson who lost a child at birth and used that pain to fuel her nonprofit The Comfort Cub. Marcella and her team provide healing weighted stuffed teddy bears/Cubs to help those mothers who grieve. We had such an incredible conversation that we set up lunch after and a friendship was born, she is a truly special human.
Marcella wasn’t the only new friend made in 2019, Roberta Lombardi the founder of Infinite Strength was so inspiring with her mission to financially assist women going through breast cancer pay for things such as daycare. We talked for over two hours and could have kept going. She is remarkable with her passion for serving and supporting these women and a true girls girl. I adored getting to know Roberta.
This year was not just about the girls, there were amazing men accomplishing unbelievable work, one of them was Seth Maxwell of the Thirst Project. At 19 years old Seth discovered how many people on this planet live without clean drinking water and made it his life’s mission to change that. Now at almost 35, he has. Seth’s organization has actually taken that number from 1.1 billion people without access to clean drinking water to 663 million and he is still going strong. More than that Seth is using his passion to inspire thousands of high school students across the country to join him in his mission.
Speaking of missions we met Colin Baden, the former CEO of Oakley sunglasses turned nonprofit founder, who continues to find ways to use technology to support Veterans with Infinite Hero Foundation. Colin’s humility and commitment to our Veterans left a lasting impression on me and the thousands that he serves. Our conversation left me in awe and reminded me that true heroes serve from a place of humility and Colin is a true hero.
While we met so many incredible and inspiring humans this past year there was one person whose positive attitude, commitment to joy and service left an indelible mark on me. His name is Hal Hargrave and he is the founder of The Be Perfect Foundation. Hal is a paraplegic and his organization works to help provide wheelchairs, cars, physical rehabilitation and a list of services for those with spinal cord injuries. Hal is someone who chooses joy and to live his life in the service of others.
All of these nonprofit founders serve humanity each and every day in so many different ways. I loved every single person I had the privilege of meeting this year and I loved introducing them to you just as much, I wish I could highlight them all here. 2019 was an amazing year and I am excited about what this New Year and decade will bring.
I think the perfect way to wrap up 2019 is with a quote from Hal Hargrave. I think Hal speaks for all the remarkable nonprofit founders and heroes when he said, “I fear not being on this earth more than anything because I know there is more that I have to give to this world and that I have more in the tank. I have an opportunity to either live life for myself or for others. It is an easy decision every day to live my life for others. The most interesting thing about it is that I am always the benefactor, whether it is a smiling face or a new attitude. It makes me a better and more aware person each time this happens. “
Wishing you a Very Happy New Year!
Charity Matters.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
This past weekend I attended Once Upon a Room’s holiday fundraiser, where my youngest son has been Santa for the past few years. I couldn’t help to be proud of all the work he has done for this organization but more importantly who is because of his service to others. Our goal as parents is to plant that seed of compassion in our children and continue to nurture and cultivate it.
As parents today we have many challenges, especially during the holidays. We all walk the fine line of asking our children what they want, realizing that they don’t really need anything and all while trying to explain to them the real meaning of the season.
So the question becomes, how do we raise philanthropic children? Here are a few suggestions.
1. Start young, the earlier the better. For little ones (4 or 5), keep it simple, perhaps canned food for a local shelter or blankets, something that they understand.
2. Be age-appropriate. Don’t overwhelm young children with world hunger but rather something relatable to them, perhaps something local in your community.
3. Engage your children in the process, especially the older they get. Find out what they care about? Perhaps they love animals and want to support a local shelter? Have them use their passion to make a difference. Catch them where they are and meet them there. Your children’s service choices will evolve as they do so be flexible.
4. Research together and suggests a few choices. With 1.7 million non-profits it can be overwhelming for all of us. Our family usually picks 3 or 4 ideas and then we vote on a holiday philanthropy project. We have adopted soldiers, fed homeless, adopted inner-city families for Christmas. Ultimately it is the kid’s vote that decides. Utilize tools like Project Giving Kids for age-appropriate ideas.
5. Be intentional with your own giving. Teach by example. Discuss what causes you care about. Let your children hear and see your volunteer efforts or participate in them if possible.
6. Make giving habitual by being consistent. Whether its part of your allowance structure, a holiday tradition or something you do at birthdays, be consistent and establish giving as a tradition and habit. It’s no different from any sport, the more you participate the easier and more fun it becomes. Ultimately it becomes a part of who they are.
7. Emphasize the joy and the experience of giving rather than money. Philanthropy is about being a part of something bigger than yourself. Giving is so much more fun than receiving. Make it a joyful experience for your family and something you share in together. Perhaps, start with entering a 5k walk or charity run or volunteering together.
The benefits of philanthropic children:
Opens children’s eyes to the fact that others are not as fortunate as they are
Develops empathetic thinking
Fosters an appreciation for what they have
Enhances self-esteem
Correlates to improved performance in school
Like everything we do with raising our children, it takes time, patience, consistency, and love. Chances are you already do most of these things and don’t even realize it and your children do too. This holiday season, enjoy the process of giving in whatever way you decide to participate. You and your children will experience the real joy of the holidays….together.
This past week I was in the New York visiting friends and getting into the holiday spirit and had the chance to talk to an amazing New Yorker and recent nonprofit founder, Alyssa Carfi. A young dynamo with a public relations career by day and someone determined to make a difference as a new nonprofit founder by night and weekends and every minute in between. I often think that people forget that nonprofit founders are entrepreneurs of the best kind, people who start businesses to serve others. Alyssa is exactly that, she has taken her experience as someone who had a brain condition called, ‘cavernous malformation’ and turned it into a remarkable nonprofit called Brave Minds Project.
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The Brave Minds Project does?
Alyssa Carfi: We are a 501c3 that focuses on supporting patients between the ages of 10-29 with brain and brain stem conditions. They are the forgotten demographic, it’s a time when your hormones are changing, your life is changing and you are trying to figure out who you want to be, trying to go to school, or launch your career and then when you find out that there is something wrong with your brains, it’s devastating. It completely changes your whole life and affects the people around you as well.
I was 15 when I was diagnosed and 18 when I had brain surgery. When I look back at what I had there were certain resources missing. I was very fortunate to have both a great support system and great doctors but I wanted to provide some of those resources. I remember my 15th birthday, I was in the hospital and a clown came in and gave me a teddy bear, while it sounds funny it wasn’t really age-appropriate. So what we do besides building a community of young people with brain and brain stem conditions, we have created a mentorship program to pair up a patient with someone in the outside workforce, so if they want to be a doctor or a teacher or an actress we pair them with a mentor in that field so they have someone to look up too. In addition, we provide things such as courage kits which are care packages for our patients and their siblings which is a fun way we can bring them a little sunshine and a smile.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Brave Minds Project?
Alyssa Carfi: Last November, the day before Thanksgiving I told my parents that I wanted to start Brave Minds Project I am ten years out of my own brain surgery and am still affected by it. Being an adult, I wanted to give back because not everyone is as fortunate as I have been. I’ve been able to go to college, to study abroad, to work and now as I navigate my own place in the world, I knew I had to do this. So, I told my parents I wanted to start a nonprofit and they agreed it was a great idea. So I applied and this past June we got our 501c3. We are just getting started.
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Alyssa Carfi: Because of my day job in PR, getting the word out has been pretty easy but the big challenge is that our patients are everywhere and we have to be wherever our patients are so the logistics can be difficult. We continue to partner with more hospitals and build momentum and we would love to be nationwide eventually. It is one step at a time but I honestly didn’t even think we would be this far in our first year.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Alyssa Carfi: It is a lot but it is also very rewarding to hear the patient’s stories and they are inspired that I went through the same thing. We had one patient who was 24 and a year out of brain surgery. I talked to him and told him how incredible he looked for being only a year out of surgery. I told him that I waited for ten years until I met someone else who had even gone through what I had. He was so excited to just have an honest reference point for how he was supposed to look. The work is hard but it is truly rewarding to connect people going through this. Now that same 24 year old is sharing his story to help others as a Brave Minds Project Ambassador.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Alyssa Carfi: It is those moments when we support our patients which means so much. We had a patient recently that is 19 years old college student with a brain tumor that affects her vision. She needed a very special and expensive contact lens. The Brave Minds volunteers surprised her with this special lens so that she could see. She was beyond grateful, those are the moments that remind me that we are making a difference.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success and impact you have had?
Alyssa Carfi: The biggest impact so far has been the patients that we have helped and their patients. Overall, the connection we have created by bringing people together within this community is something you can’t put a number on. We connect patients to other patients and have incredible events at The Brain Bar, in patrnership with Stroke of Genius, where we bring in speakers such as well known neurosurgeons to talk about various topics, like combining yoga and brain surgery and why its best for recovery. Friends and family of patients have also met and created another level of support.
Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?
Alyssa Carfi: As we come upon our one year anniversary of the Brave Minds Project, my dream would be to raise more funds to put resources into building more programs. I want to continue to foster our community along with our programs. We have so many great things in place and I am really excited about where we are heading in trying to help this demographic of patients along with the hospitals and institutions. I think that we are bringing people together that can really help to move the needle.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Alyssa Carfi: I always knew I was going to do something based on what happened to me. I know I was put on this earth for a larger purpose and this experience has taught me that anything is possible. I work really hard to make this happen and I work really hard at my job. All the funds raised by the nonprofit go right back into the organization. I have gotten very good at focusing and compartmentalizing to get things done. The Brave Minds Project has reminded me that people always want to help and I am always amazed by the gifts of time and effort put into showing up and supporting this work.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Alyssa Carfi: I have grown as a person. This has been really freeing because not everyone knew my story. I wear my story every day I have 6th and 7th nerve palsy which is where your eye and smile are affected. As a result, I have had a lot of cosmetic surgery and it is definitely better. Starting the Brave Minds Project has forced me to be vulnerable and to open up and say, “Yeah I had this, this is what happened to me and because of this I now run a nonprofit to help others like me.” People no longer see my limitations anymore but the whole picture of what happened to me and how I was able to turn it into something good and that fuels everything that I am doing right now.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands — one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”
Audrey Hepburn
As the holiday season has officially begun and all of us are scrambling to find just the right gift, I recently reached out to my friend Jennifer Hillman, founder of a genius business called LuxAnthrophy, for some inspiration for gifts that give back. LuxAnthrophy is a brilliant online platform for men and women to sell their high-end goods (bags, clothing, jewelry, etc.) and give a percentage to charity and LuxAnthropy also contributes to your cause. Jenn has taken philanthropy and fashion and brought them together in the most inspiring way.
So, whether you are cleaning out your closet to get ready for what Santa is going to bring you or you want to make a difference this holiday season by shopping at LuxAnthrophy knowing that a percentage of your purchase will go to an amazing cause you really can’t go wrong!
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about LuxAnthrophy?
Jennifer Hillman: We created LuxAnthropy based on the belief that conscious consumerism, along with small but thoughtful acts of generosity, breeds global change. LuxAnthropy is a high fashion resale website dedicated to giving back to its charitable partners. We carefully select, authenticate and curate each luxury and designer item, generously provided by top celebrities, stylists, Hollywood insiders, fashion houses and influencers.
LuxAnthropy has combined profit and purpose as the leading make money/give money designer resale website where influencers, fashionistas, designers and stylists are selling items from their wardrobe, making money while also supporting charities they love. Making the experience easy, pain-free and purposeful, LuxAnthropy provides white-glove service by curating, authenticating, photographing and posting all items for sale; and sends all donations in the consignor’s name to their designated charity. LuxAnthropy donates a percentage of its proceeds as well. Our customers love getting great deals from very special closets and feel good knowing they’re supporting a worthy cause.
Our sellers can make money and give money. We wanted to allow giving amounts to be a personal choice because all the giving is good. Therefore, our sellers determine the percentage of their commission to donate to one of our partner charities and LuxAnthropy contributes five percent of its proceeds to the same charity. And, LuxAnthropy’s customers get great deals on top tier fashion, while also knowing that their purchase is helping others in need.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start your philanthropic organization?
Jennifer Hillman: Having a mother who is a two-time breast cancer survivor, combined with working alongside iconic philanthropist Evelyn Lauder to elevate The Estee Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, propelled me in ways that are still surprising me today. When we first came up with LuxAnthropy’s “make money, give money” business model, Myra Biblowit, President of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation was the first person I called. And when Myra said, “Wait, why isn’t this being done already?” I knew we were onto something that could really be powerful. BCRF’s willingness to take a chance on LuxAnthropy is a testament to the essence of who and what they stand for as a charity. We’re incredibly proud to say that we have more than 20 highly-rated charity partners today, and are honored that BCRF was LuxAnthropy’s first.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Jennifer Hillman: The generosity of people fuels me. There are so many who have helped us get to where we are today and we are incredibly grateful to each and every one of them. Our fuel is also the responses we continuously receive from our charity partners, sellers, and customers. When we contact our sellers to let them know something of theirs has sold, the typical response we hear is “That’s amazing! I’m going to send you more items from my closet. And tell my friends about LuxAnthropy.” A new customer called to say that she’d been looking for one of the designer dresses that she purchased on LuxAnthropy for a year, and was so excited to find it, and even more excited to know that everything being sold on the website supports wonderful charities.
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Jennifer Hillman: LuxAnthropy is all about making a difference and helping others make a difference, in whatever way that works for each person’s lifestyle. A few weeks back at a fundraising event hosted by a friend, I was singled out by several people in attendance as the person they needed to meet. They all had things in their closet that they were no longer using and wanted to have LuxAnthropy sell them to benefit a particular charity. That felt great. A triple win. A win for that person, win for that charity and a personal win for us at LuxAnthropy. It’s great to see a positive word of mouth is spreading about LuxAnthropy.
Making a difference from an environmental perspective is already part of everything we do. This is because when new and almost-new designer items move from the back of one person’s closet to the front of someone else’s (vs. going into landfills), we’re helping to preserve our environment for future generations.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had?
Jennifer Hillman: We are proud to have over twenty charity partners already on board, including St Judes, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, BCRF, Children Mending Hearts, The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and more are signing on with us all the time. The collective feedback has been universally positive. We strive to make it super easy for sellers, charities, and buyers. We continue to have a month on month growth — both in sales and in social engagement. We’re a young company and just at the beginning of our journey and we are proud of our story. We love giving back and hope we are an example of just how easy and fashionable giving can be.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience? How has this journey changed you?
Jennifer Hillman: I’ve learned that no matter what your job is, it’s important to remember the benefits of work, life balance. To recharge by yourself or by spending time with family and friends. Great ideas often come from when I’m not at the office but on a hike, in a pilates class or getting my nails done with my daughter. I’m learning that it’s ok to take some time for myself as it only benefits everyone around me, especially the team at LuxAnthropy.
More than that, I’ve learned a lot about human nature and that, for the most part, helping others is intrinsic in each of us. Everyone feels good helping others. It’s just that simple. With our platform, we’re incredibly excited that we’ve created a way where giving back is made easy. We all work really hard because we want to make a difference.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, a successful black Friday, are enjoyed your cyber Monday and are now ready for the most important day of all… #GivingTuesday. What is #GivingTuesday, you ask? It is a global generosity movement that began in 2012 to celebrate and support giving and the power of people to transform their communities and the world. Giving Tuesday began as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good and something to counter Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Over the past seven years, this idea has transformed into a global movement that has inspired hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate and celebrate generosity.
Since I’m heading to the birthplace of Giving Tuesday today to kick off the holiday season, I only thought it was fitting to share a little about this special day. For those of us in the nonprofit space (all 1.7 million nonprofits in the US) Giving Tuesday is one of the biggest days of the year. It was started by New York’s 92nd Street Y, which has over 140 years of fundraising experience. They reached out to the United Nations Foundation with this innovative idea and joined as partners. Soon after, big corporations and non-profits signed on to help spread the word and the rest is history, as they say.
Giving Tuesday has become a global movement that last year united over 100 countries around the world by sharing our human capacity to care for and empower one another. Today, more than ever, we need to be doing a little more of that. What I think is even more fantastic is the volunteering efforts that go along with the day. If you are not sure where to start then simply go the link here and you will find a list of local volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood.
Last year alone over 700,000 people volunteered for clothing drives, tutoring projects and a wide range of activities aimed at helping local non-profits across the country. Almost 40,000 charities, corporate and civic partners registered to officially be a part of Giving Tuesday this year. Sheila Herring from the Case Foundation was quoted as saying,”The biggest thing for us is that Giving Tuesday directly challenges Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What if, as a nation, we focused that kind of attention on giving and we wanted that to be our identity.”
What if? Our world would be a better place. And it already is because what started as an idea seven years ago, has raised over one billion dollars in the United States alone online for charities and causes, around the world. When we come together in unity, we can make beautiful things happen.
Charity Matters.
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to pass the torch/post and inspire another.
People who move change the world. That is the slogan for the Parkinson’s Foundation and this past weekend that is what our family did, we moved. We are a family of action but this weekend our movement was different. On Saturday, we moved to support my stepmother, Nan, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease ten years ago. This year alone another 60, 000 people will be diagnosed with the disease. So when my sister-in-law reached out to everyone and said let’s walk for Nan, we were all in.
Over one million Americans live with Parkinson’s Disease and every nine minutes someone new is diagnosed. There are ten million people worldwide living with Parkinson’s disease. While we think that Parkinson’s affects older people, ten percent of the diagnosis are for people under the age of fifty.
So before we began our walk on Saturday we each grabbed a ribbon to walk with. The blue ribbon was for the person with Parkinson’s disease. The gold for the caretaker living with someone with the disease and the silver ribbon for those of us that supported a loved one with Parkinson’s.
What exactly is Parkinson’s Disease? It is a chronic and progressive disease that at its most simple definition is a movement disorder that affects the ability to perform common daily activities. Parkinsons is often characterized by its most common motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness of the muscles and slowness of movement.
The American Parkinson’s Disease Association was founded in 1961 and even google could not help me find out who founded the organization, so that will have to wait for another post. What I do know is that since that time the organization has raised over $185 million dollars to help research, educate and help us to find a cure for this disease.
So on Saturday, we carried our ribbons and walked for Nan and for my dad and for all of those who love and care for someone with Parkinson’s.
We raised money, sent emails and did social media to get the word out and my sister and brother-in-law even sponsored the porta potties for the event. This isn’t our typical family photo….
As the Parkinson’s Foundation says, “People who move change the world.” There was simply nothing better than seeing Nan and my dad moving together, our family and hundreds of people supporting one another to change the world and the face of this disease one step at a time.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS OUR GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE INSPIRED, PLEASE SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
