Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure,
Measure a year?
In daylights?
In sunsets?
In midnights?
In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life?
This past weekend we celebrated my Dad’s 80th birthday. It was a fantastic celebration of a man who has lived many lives, faced death more than a few times and never thought he would be here to talk about it eighty years later. Like all birthdays it was a time of reflection, a moment to pause and to assess what really matters…family, friends, health and love. Our celebration was all of that and then some. As my dad spoke to everyone, he talked about how grateful he was to have such a life and reminded us all that none of us get out of here alive….which if you know my dad speaks to his humor.
My dad is one of seven children and all of the siblings rallied from near and far to be with him for his special day. The only one missing was my aunt, the firstborn of the clan who had passed away a week before. So, on Monday we had her service and celebrated my aunt’s life in a different sort of celebration, a celebration of life. The juxtaposition was palpable and yet both events were joyful times honoring my amazing family.
I came home from the service and couldn’t help but take a pause for the legacy my grandparents created in their seven children. First and foremost, they (my aunts and uncle) are a team. Always one hundred percent there for each other and every life event. Years ago when my parents were in their car accident and my dad was in a coma, his siblings came from everywhere and took turns sitting by his side 24 hours a day for weeks so he was never alone. They are always there for one another, no matter what.
All of my aunts and uncles have incredible faith and each has served others in a variety of ways. They have all been either teachers, champions for those who struggle with addiction, volunteers, board members, community leaders and above all humans who are kind, generous and who use their time to make others’ lives better. As I drove my family to the airport I followed a car that’s license plate said it all, GRYTFUL or grateful. …..beyond grateful to measure two amazing lives with love.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure,
Measure a year?
In daylights?
In sunsets?
In midnights?
In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life?
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS OUR GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE INSPIRED, PLEASE SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
” When you come to the edge of a forest and there is no path-make one that others will follow.”
Author unknown
I couldn’t let October come to an end without discussing Breast Cancer. Last year I interviewed an amazing nonprofit founder and breast cancer survivor and since that interview, I have had four friends who have undergone mastectomies. Breast Cancer isn’t something that only happens in October it is something that happens every two minutes every day. One in eight women will develop breast cancer over the course of her lifetime according to the American Cancer Society. Breast Cancer does not discriminate from the rich or the poor. To be honest I had never thought about what happens when you get breast cancer and have no insurance? I assumed that Medicaid and Medicare covered everything. Well, I was wrong.
Last year, I had the most inspiring conversation with the nonprofit founder, Alisa Savoretti, a woman who lived this journey of having a mastectomy and no insurance for reconstructive surgery. The result was the creation of My Hope Chest, the only national nonprofit in the country that takes these women and helps to fund their reconstructive surgery. Alisa and I had an incredible conversation and I left feeling inspired by this amazing warrior who fights for women who truly need one. She has left such a lasting impression on me that I wanted to re-share her story.
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew that you needed to act and start My Hope Chest?
Alisa Savoretti: Hearing you have cancer is a devastating moment. It’s one thing to hear you have cancer but it is another thing to realize you have cancer, you do not have insurance and you do not qualify for Medicaid. This is what happened to me at 38 years old. I had been working in Las Vegas as a showgirl and had recently moved to Florida to begin an online furniture business before companies like Pottery Barn existed. I had borrowed funds on credit cards to launch Retrohome.com in 1999 when I found out I had cancer. The doctor said to take care of the cancer, focus on surviving and worry about the reconstruction later.
I survived but lived without my breast for almost three years. You have no idea what this does for you as a woman, for your mental well being. During those three years, I reached out to organizations all over the country, government, nonprofit, anyone who could help me to become whole again. I discovered that there wasn’t anywhere to go. I felt deformed, depressed, frustrated, had metal anguish and enormous financial stress.
I went back to Vegas to work at The Rivera and the 1998 government law now mandated that their group policy could not decline me insurance in order to get my reconstructive surgery. I realized how my own self-esteem, confidence, and self-worth as a woman returned when I could look in the mirror and could see my whole physical being once again. It was my healing, a restoration in body mind and spirit.
While I was in Vegas, I volunteered for a NAWBO (National Association of Women’s Business Owners) event. I told the women from NAWBO my story and these women rallied around me and with their help, I was able to start My Hope Chest and had my 501c3, six weeks later on December 3rd, 2003. We will celebrate our 15th anniversary this year.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Alisa Savoretti: Some days it feels as if I am pushing a boulder uphill with a toothpick. And fifteen years of doing this at the grassroots level, the work is very hard. What fuels me is knowing that thousands and thousands of women are missing their breast and this shouldn’t be happening in our country. Making women whole again is our mission. I think about more women are surviving breast cancer and that’s true, but what about their quality of life if they are not whole?
These women are sick and often lose their jobs because they can’t work. They are now disfigured, deformed and depressed. The ripple effect of not being whole is devastating on marriages and families. This work has become my life’s mission. I am not married, cancer made children no longer an option and for the past fifteen years, this work has been my life.
Charity Matters: When do you know that you have made a DIFFERENCE?
Alisa Savoretti: We pick up where the government programs leave off. That is why we exist. Our biggest referrals come from nonprofits such as the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen, and Care.org. We get referrals from them weekly and we can not tell our clients if or when they are going to be helped. They sit on a waitlist while we try to raise the funds to make their reconstructive surgery happen. Helping women to become whole again is what fuels me and just knowing that there is always a list of women waiting for us to find the funding.
I know that we have made a difference when we can help them with whatever they have asked for and the letters they send us.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had?
Alisa Savoretti: We help women every year in a small way and I feel blessed that God picked me to do this task. Every time we get the word out about our work it helps fund someone’s surgery. Shining a light on this cause is SO important. We have been able to fill a gap where other breast cancer charities leave off. If there was another organization doing our work we wouldn’t do it but sadly there isn’t anyone else. The women we help are eternally grateful for all we have done and to me, that is the success.
Charity Matters: What is your vision for My Hope Chest going forward?
Alisa Savoretti: We will only exist until there is a cure for breast cancer. Of course, the big dream is that there is a day when our services are no longer needed. Ten years from now I dream that we have enough resources, funding, surgical partners and angel warriors that we can help women as quickly as they are referred to us. I dream of no longer having a waitlist and being able to have a more efficient meaningful impact on these women’s lives.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience? How has this changed you?
Alisa Savoretti: God had a different plan for my life. I have a quote on my desk that says,” When you come to the edge of a forest and there is no path-make one that others will follow.” I feel like that is what happened with My Hope Chest. My life’s lesson is that when you persevere you will make a difference. The fact that this even exists in 2018 and is still flying under the radar that there are women, thousands of women in this country living without their breast. I have refinanced my home three times to keep the funding going for My Hope Chest. I have taken extra jobs at the grocery store to fund this. I have learned that I have to persevere to help these women in any way I can. I cannot give up on them.
I think that changing even one life is important. Things are bigger than us, this mission is bigger than me and I have tied my life to making a difference. For me, I am grateful I was chosen for this journey. I am grateful to keep doing this work and I pray the Lord that My Hope Chest gets to leave a legacy on this earth until there is no longer a need for our services. That is my utmost prayer.
In the end, I know that I have done my very best.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS OUR GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE INSPIRED, please SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
” Love one another, for that, is the whole law; so our fellow men deserve to be loved and encouraged-never to be abandoned to wander in poverty and darkness. The practice of charity will bind us-will bind all men in one great brotherhood.”
Conrad N. Hilton
Over the years I have written a number of posts about raising philanthropic children. In each story, the key ingredient in raising philanthropic children is modeling the behavior that you want your child to emulate. I can think of no greater example than Conrad N. Hilton and his son Barron Hilton, who followed in his father’s business and philanthropic footsteps.
You may recall a few months back when I did a story on Conrad Hilton’s legacy, well last week, I spent three days at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation for a seminar they were hosting for the Catholic Sisters Initiative. I happened to be there when the announcement was made that, Barron Hilton had passed away at the age of 91. It was a sad and reverent moment being with all of those who are doing the work daily to ensure that his father, Conrad Hilton’s, last wishes live on through his philanthropy.
Conrad Hilton was always a philanthropic man with a generous heart and kind spirit for all, and his son Barron followed in his father’s footsteps. Barron joined the Navy in WWII as a photographer and set out at age 19 to make it on his own without his father’s help. He began an orange juice packing business and then an oil company. Barron began the first aircraft leasing company and in 1951 and already a self-made millionaire began at the bottom of his father’s hotel company. He married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn, a marriage that lasted over 57 years and produced eight children.
By 1966 when Barron became CEO of Hilton Hotels the company had 50 hotels. In 1960 he bought the LA Charger football team for $25,000 and sold it six years later for $10 million. In 2007, when Barron sold the Hilton Hotel Corporation the chain had grown to 2,600 hotels in 76 countries. He had grown his father’s $160 million in Hilton stock to $2.9 billion. Barron took the Giving Pledge and committed to following his father’s example leaving 97% of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which now has over $6.3 billion dollars in assets.
Watching the incredible team of people who work hard every day to ensure that the generous legacy of both Conrad and Barron Hilton lives on through the foundation’s work has been a privilege. Since 1944, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation has given more than $1.8 billion dollars in grants around the world to alleviate poverty, hunger, HIV, homelessness and the list goes on. As Conrad Hilton said, “Charity is a supreme virtue and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts.” A virtue that a father passed to his son and now will live on to serve those in need.
“The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance, and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.”
Oprah Winfrey
We never really know where life is going to take us, it is a journey and a process. The beauty of writing is that I can stop along the way and reflect at moments that lead me to this one right now. As we all know, life is about the people we meet along our path and the moments that we share together. When you walk far enough down your path you can begin to see that life’s greatest challenges were the road signs that redirected your course. Those roadblocks are actually road signs screaming, “Stop danger ahead, you must make a drastic turn, now!” Of course when we start our journey’s we are convinced that those roadblocks are the end of the path and our world in that moment. The farther we move ahead, the clearer that obstacle becomes the gift that it is.
When my mom died suddenly in 2002, and my father came very close to death it was a roadblock of epic proportions. That roadblock led a group of us to start a nonprofit providing chaplains of all faiths at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The experience of starting and running an organization that asks for money to survive had me questioning who are these modern-day heroes? All 1.7 million of them! And what the heck happened to them to make them want to do this crazy difficult humanitarian work?
That question burned in my mind and honestly still does today. I sent out on a quest in 2011 to find them, modern-day heroes. I needed to know who these people were, what happened to them and why they do this incredibly hard work every day? To say I was and am obsessed would be an understatement. That quest and question lead me to start Charity Matters, which today celebrates its 8th birthday, the same birthday as my moms.
Next week Charity Matters will celebrate its 1,000th post, so hard to believe? This journey has brought some of the most fascinating people into my life who have taught me so much about empathy, kindness, perseverance, purpose, faith, love and friendship. So many of the people I have interviewed have become friends along the way. My life is so much richer than I could have ever expected from the roadblocks and the sharp turns that continue to shape this path.
So, thank you for being a part of this with me. I write this because I am looking for goodness and each week that you read this, you are too. I believe that people are good and that we are all looking for examples. So thank you for validating this quest, for being a part of my journey and for knowing that….
Charity Matters
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
Every week of my adult life on Friday afternoons I have written down for myself my “weekly wins.” I write down a minimum of five great things that happened during the week, my roadblocks and challenges and my next steps. It has been a life pattern that has served me well. When I close my computer on Friday’s I can put work behind me and think about how to work through the roadblocks as I move ahead. On Sunday nights, I review my next steps to think about how to tackle my week.
Last week I received a roadblock like no other and it has left me so sad. Each week for the past eight years I have poured my heart, my soul and hours into these posts for Charity Matters. I don’t advertise on this site, I don’t do any of this for financial gain or notoriety. I write these stories to inspire not only myself but everyone to serve one another. When I write, I feel like I am writing alone and so often I forget that thousands of you receive these posts each week until you send me the most beautiful emails that keep me coming back for more. FYI: I turned the comment section off my blog so only I see and receive your notes:)
To accurately tell the stories of nonprofits I ask the organizations for their images to help tell their stories. I have used many of my own images and or what the organization provides me. So when I received copyright notification from an attorney who uses trolling software to scan the internet for photos to pay him a huge fee to go away, it crushed me. I trust that the people who are providing me images are providing images that they have clearance to use. I also know that with copyright laws there is a clause that if you use an image to educate and not for financial gain you are “covered” by the law. The reality is that it could cost thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees to defend this. Funds that I do not have. It feels like good vs. evil and how can greed win over a pure intention? My heart is truly breaking.
As the sign above the tunnel says in MY photo above…PERSIST. If there is one thing that I have learned from my weekly wins and roadblocks, is that every roadblock is God’s way of showing a sign to another path.
Working through and overcoming each challenge that life presents is a victory in itself. Every time life puts up a roadblock, I am overwhelmed with the amount of support I receive from so many to help me through it. Thank you for your continued belief in my work and the belief that people are good. I know that I will get through this roadblock stronger, wiser and come back ready to show the world just how much good is out there.
Charity Matters.
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
This week’s fire at Notre Dame affected me more than I realized and while I was planning on sharing a different story, I found myself needing to shift gears. Over the years I have written many posts about loss and the multitude of ways in which it affects our lives. Loss and adversity do many things, it breaks our hearts, it makes us sad and it unites us in a shared experience and brings us together in community. The fire at Notre Dame did all of that; a huge loss for the world and in the ruins we see the beauty of people coming together in shared grief.
For many of us, when we think about Notre Dame we think of our first trip to Paris and the wonder of it all. For me the first time I saw the beautiful landmark was a trip with my mom after I graduated from college. So many of us posted our pictures standing in front of the iconic cathedral over the decades on social media in the aftermath of the fire. A shared experience that hundreds of thousands of us experience each year. We came together via Instagram, Facebook, our modern-day community to mourn and to unite with those images.
Notre Dame has always been about bringing people together, imagine the community that built that iconic structure over 850 years ago? For over two centuries families came together in to build the cathedral. Hauling one thousand three hundred oak trees to create the rafters took an enormous effort and to imagine what it took to simply move one oak tree in the year 1163. The journey of creating, the struggles to build, the families that sacrificed to erect the cathedral are as monumental as the scale of the flying buttresses. The awe and wonder that was built to show the human spirit, imagination, beauty and the community of faith are what continues to draw us to the iconic structure over and over.
Notre Dame was not only a community in its creation but once finished it was the center of Paris; a place of worship, faith, a place to celebrate births, weddings and deaths. Hundreds of thousands of families had the most important moments of their lives within those walls for over eight hundred years. People coming together to support one another in times of joy and sadness. It is what we do as humans and sometimes it is something we forget about in our daily lives as we look at screens, smartphones and not the people sitting next to us.
The fire this week is a reminder that in loss we come together to support one another, to share memories, to console each other and to look ahead at how we can rebuild in the face of adversity. How do we unite to re-create beauty, to dream, to build, to worship, to love, to celebrate and to live?
Notre Dame is symbolic of our lives and a precious reminder of the power and importance of coming together in good times and in bad.
Charity Matters
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Help Us Adopt does?
Becky Fawcett: Help Us Adopt began in 2007 at our kitchen table and an idea to help build families through adoption. Our platform was families combined with a commitment to equality, something everyone could believe in. The brutal reality is that over 100 million children in the world need homes and adoption is the answer. We didn’t want to tell those children that people can’t afford to adopt, we wanted to be the ones who make their adoptions a reality. We do that by raising funds to provide grants to people who need financial support to begin their families.
photo credit: Classic Kids
Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Help Us Adopt?
Becky Fawcett: I was raised that we were fortunate, there will always be people with more and always with less but more importantly, be grateful for what you have. When my husband Kipp and I realized that Invetro Fertilization (IVF) wasn’t going to work and adoption was going to cost $40,000 I thought, what would happen if we didn’t have this money? I knew how much motherhood meant to me and that I could just barely afford this, but where would I have gone if I didn’t have the resources? So, I began to look for organizations that helped families to fund adoptions and couldn’t find one that didn’t dictate how someone adopts.
I never intended to start this. My original intention was to give my marketing and pr skills as a volunteer to an existing grant organization. The more I looked I realized that the only existing organizations were limited in their thinking, giving small amounts of money to help fund adoptions, charging expensive application fees and were really patching the problem. These organizations were dictating how someone adopts. I thought who am I to tell families that they have to fit the traditional mold to adopt? Everyone grows up dreaming of a family. We knew we wanted to support all who had a dream of having a family.
That is why I started this because it just didn’t exist. So in 2007, I set out to tell this story that I knew I had to tell. Raising the initial funds was easy, until the recession….
Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?
Becky Fawcett: Our biggest challenge is raising money. Finding big angel donors is a lot of hustle for the million plus dollars we raise a year. Finding those donors who are investment donors. The other challenge is that there is still a stigma about adoption and a lot of misinformation about adoption out there and what makes a family. It is frustrating the language used around adoption.
Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?
Becky Fawcett: So many things, number one thing is that a lot of people thought we would fail and we have succeeded. Strangers have come to us and want to get involved, which is huge. We are doing groundbreaking work not just for adoption but for family equality. I love leading the charge here and I have become very comfortable with the uncomfortable.
I love building things and I believe Help Us Adopt can be even bigger. The last and most important thing is that helping people is infectious!
Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?
Becky Fawcett: The minute we read an application from a family I know we are going to make a difference. When we award a grant we know we have moved the needle. We relieve families from debt in some cases, in some situations our funding helps to speed up the process of adopting their child. I know we help people the minute that grant is awarded. When the child gets home that is when the story starts getting told.
We can watch our work grow up before our eyes and that makes me SO excited! When we watch these children grow up and get Christmas and birthday cards of these beautiful families. Adoption is my world, this is my children’s lives and I need to make it better for everyone. For my children, for their birth mothers and all birth mothers who make the most difficult decisions in the face of adversity that none of us will ever understand. I am advocate for them and their rights as well and I never expected to be here.
Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had? What has your impact been?
Becky Fawcett: Help Us Adopt is now in our 12th year and are awarding on average a family a week a grant. When we started Help Us Adopt we only had $100,000 to award. Now, we have four grant cycles at $150,000 each year and our average grants are about nine thousand dollars. This puts us at helping a family a week for 2019.
A lot of blood sweat and tears have gone into this. It is hard work but a steady progressive upward climb. Everything we do is slightly different and we run our nonprofit like a business. Our issue is a unique and such an untold story. People think it is easy to adopt and that it should be free. When we start to tell people the challenges in adoption and about the children that need homes, people say, “I had no idea what can I do? ” Every single donor big or small makes a big difference by helping the life of a child. We put kids in homes and build families and everyone can relate to building a family.
Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?
Becky Fawcett:I know that every job I have ever had lead me to this. I have learned to always ask, the worst thing that can happen is that someone can say no. People are waiting to be asked. Tell people you need help they want to help.
Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?
Becky Fawcett:I don’t even know how to put that into words. I know I am not the person I was fourteen years ago. I am such a better version of myself in so many ways. The biggest change has been my level of compassion. I think I am much more aware now that you really never know what someone is dealing with. I didn’t tell people what I was going through when I struggled to have children. I’ve learned I have had to trust strangers, my children’s birth mothers and so many others along the way. I know I’m far from perfect but I do know the instant love I had with my children has changed my life forever.
Charity Matters
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
“There are those who see the need and respond, I consider those people my heroes.”
Fred Rogers
As the New Year kicks into gear I have been thinking about what is important and what to focus on this year. There is so much negativity in our world or at least in the world presented to us in the media. How does one small voice overcome such noise? In the midst of my pondering, I unexpectedly watched the documentary film, Won’t you be my neighbor? There right in front of me was the answer coming from Mr. Rogers.
A quiet and gentle man who had the idea to give children something meaningful in the midst of the turmoil of the late 1960s. Fred Roger’s mission was to build a community or neighborhood on the basic principles of loving your neighbor and yourself. He said,” Love is at the root of everything.” His life’s work was to make good and he believed that the power of television could build a real community where he could inspire the best in children to do just that.
When I think about New Years and what to focus on in 2019, Mr. Roger’s life and work seemed to capture the true essence of what really matters. There were so many beautiful messages in this film that it is impossible to share them all. Here are a few of my favorite takeaways and something to think to about as you begin looking at what matters in your year ahead.
“Although children’s “outsides” may have changed a lot, their inner needs have remained very much the same. Society seems to be pushing children to grow faster, but their developmental tasks have remained constant.”
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
“It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have.”
“What can change the world? When someone gets the idea that love can abound and be shared.”
Charity Matters
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
Amazing and inspiring people are all around us every single day, and yet somehow we don’t know their stories. These stories and people continue to fascinate and inspire me. I seek them out, track them down and want to shout from the roof tops their stories.
This is the incredible story about a guy named Hank Fortner, who grew up in an amazing family made up of biological children, foster children and adopted children. His family fostered 36 children and adopted six children from five different countries while he was growing up. Friends who wanted to adopt a child began coming to him and telling him how expensive adoption can be, often times up to $50,000 to adopt a child. He thought there must be a better way to help these children and these families. This is his story…
So, in January 2012 Hank decided to create AdoptTogether which is the world’s largest nonprofit crowdfunding platform for adoption. Think of it as a hybrid version of KickStarter or GoFundMe, except for a nonprofit, where every donation is tax deductible. This is how it works:
However, that wasn’t even enough for Hank. He wanted to go one step further and inquired about a World Adoption Day, it turns out that it didn’t exist. It also seemed that the United Nations was in charge of approving and sanctioning such a day. Hank was not deterred and on November 9th, 2014 he launched the first World Adoption Day campaign.
Today, AdoptTogether has raised over $17 million dollars for more than 4,000 families in just over six years. Their dream of a world with a family for every child continues. So this Friday, November 9th celebrate family and the incredible humans that bring us together every single day.
Charity Matters
YOUR REFERRAL IS OUR GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE INSPIRED, PLEASE SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
“May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely than this our own country!”
Daniel Webster
It is hard to believe that today is already the 4th of July! It seems that when this incredible holiday falls in the middle of the week, just a little piece of summer goes missing. However, any day off is usually a good one! The 4th of July is one of THE best holidays because there are no gifts to buy or wrap, no huge elaborate decorations but rather it is a day to do something simple with friends and family…a beach, a picnic, a barbecue and of course fireworks.
Today, we celebrate our country’s 241st birthday. As a nation we are still young and it is evident that we still have more than a few growing pains. While, it has been hard to watch our country so divided in so many ways, I think we often forget how much more connected we are than separated. Our media thrives on conflict and so rarely do we get to witness images of resolution, collaboration, kindness, teamwork and hard work. All of which are things that I have the privilege of seeing in my America.
Interviewing people over and over who give of themselves, their finances, their time, energy and commitment simply to help their fellow man. That is my America. Our 1.7 million nonprofits and the 11.2 million Americans who work for them are there for one reason only, to serve someone else. To help someone who needs it. That is what I see everyday in my America. Hardworking dedicated volunteers and nonprofit employees choosing to give of themselves, just as those who came before us did. Whether service through military, through church and community or simply to one another that is what Americans do.
When September 11th happened we all reached out to one another. We held each other up, we gave of ourselves to help those that were suffering.
That is the America that I know. Yes, we do not all agree on everything and chances are high that we ever will. However, I do hope that today you agree how lucky you are to live in a free country filled with good, kind and hardworking people who model to the world what freedom is. We are Americans, that is what we do.
Photo credit: AFP PHOTO / Mark RALSTONMARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Happy 241st birthday America and Happy 4th of July!
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 never know what a lunch invitation is going to lead too…..A few weeks ago a friend of mine reached out and invited a handful of girlfriends to connect with a remarkable woman named Elena Davis for lunch. She was coming into town from Houston and had started a nonprofit organization there serving the homeless in 2009. I of course could not wait until lunch to meet and connected with Elena last week via phone to chat and ask about her journey in beginning I Am Waters Foundation.
I have to say, it was one of the most remarkable stories and amazing conversations. Elena is truly an inspiration and I am sure you will feel the same way…
what is the i am waters foundation’s mission?
Elena Davis: I Am Water’s mission is to do one perfect and complete thing: to deliver water. Clean drinking water in a bottle with a message of hope, love and faith to remind the person holding and drinking from the bottle that something important lies beyond physical sight.
charity matters: there is usually a connection between nonprofit founders and their causes, what is yours?
Elena Davis: My life as it stands now is far from where I started. As one of four kids raised by a single mother on less than three thousand dollars a year and food stamps, my life was lived in extreme need and on the margins of society, with struggle as a constant companion. At the age of fourteen, after having attended over a dozen schools, I started dreaming of a better life than the one into which I was born. I was introduced to a photographer who took the first shots of me and I began to realize my dream of becoming a fashion model. At the age of 16, having signed with the renowned Ford Agency, I set off to Paris to begin what was to become a lucrative and successful career as a print and fashion model.
After 15 years of hard work and a successful career as a model, I was able to contribute to alleviating my family’s financial woes . In 1994, I married into one of the country’s more prominent families. Twelve years of marriage and 3 kids later, I had all that I had dreamed of. Or so I thought. In 2009, while going to pick my kids up from school a homeless woman knocked on my car window. I reached for money and she shoved it back to me and said, “Please, I am so thirsty can I please have your water?” As I handed her the water and felt a jolt, like an electric current. She said, “Thank you and God Bless you.” And she disappeared.
Charity matters: what was the moment you knew you needed to start your nonprofit?
Elena Davis: After meeting that woman, I couldn’t get her out of my mind and I knew that I was being called to do something. I just wasn’t sure what. Then a series of things happened that kept pointing to water and homelessness. I knew I needed to revisit my past and I was scared to face the deeply buried part of myself, my childhood, that I had kept a secret from my friends and the people I knew. Yet, I knew that if we could heal one crucial aspect of the intense need that a person without a home has to deal with daily, by providing water, we could make an impact and so in 2009 we began the I am Waters Foundation.
charity matters: homelessness has so many layers where do you start?
Elena Davis: Did you know the average age of homeless person is 9 years old? We have more than 3.5 million people that are homeless in this country every night and of the 31 million people living in poverty more than 12 million of them are children. We start by providing the most basic human need, water.
charity matters: what keeps you doing this work when The job is never ending and the need is enormous?
Elena Davis: The work is hard but I really believe that I was called to do this. The short answer is God. What are the chances that I was born into poverty and married into a great family? I think I am a bridge between two worlds and this was God’s way of saving me. Also, my husband has been incredibly supportive through this entire journey.
charity matters: when do you know you have made a difference?
Elena Davis: On a micro level I think we have been able to track people and follow our progress. On a macro level we have worked tirelessly to help change the systems by working with cities, calling out injustices and simply by not giving up. We are excited to be launching a new program I Am Jobs to continue our mission to serve this underserved population.
charity matters: Tell us the success you have had and your impact?
Elena Davis: We have distributed over 4.1 million bottles of water to the homeless in six states. We have partnered with countless homeless agencies and 45 shelter partners that we research. We are now working with cities to begin an I Am Jobs program in addition to supplying water and hope to the population we serve. The water continues to be the tool we use to reach people and connect. Each bottle has a phone number that connects us to the individual in need. We have partnered with incredible organizations to help the next steps in the job process. It all starts with the individual person who is asking for help.
charity matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience and how has this journey changed you?
Elena Davis: Growing up transient I kept to myself. My heart was buried and this journey has cleansed me, given me gratitude and perspective. I have learned that our gifts are tied to our wounds. You need to go down to the core of who we are and face that to move forward to help others.
charity Matters: Thank you for sharing your remarkable story, You truly are an inspiration and more than a super model but a super role model for us all.
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 must confess numbers are not my thing and never really have been. However, when numbers involve how much we give and to who….I must admit I’m fascinated. Each of us gives in different ways and at different times through a variety of options. Who knew that all that giving has been combined, tallied and pulled together? Well this years numbers are in from Giving USA’s 2018 Report and the numbers just might surprise you.
The report is done by Giving USA which is a public service initiative of The Giving Institute and is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IU. It is the longest running and most comprehensive report of its kind in America. According to Aggie Sweeney, chair of Giving USA Foundation, “American’s record breaking charitable giving in 2017 demonstrates that even in divisive times our commitment to philanthropy is solid. As people have more resources available, they are choosing to use them to make a difference, pushing giving to over $400 Billion.”
Last year alone, individuals in the United States collectively gave $286.65 billion dollars, which is up five percent from the previous year. That is a serious amount charity. Individual donations were not the only way people gave;
Sixty-six billion dollars was given to foundations in 2017 which was a six percent increase.
Thirty-five billion was donated via bequest from people’s estates, which was also a number that went up.
Over twenty billion dollars was given by corporations last year, up almost six percent as well.
So who did we give our hard earned funds to in 2017? We gave over $127 billion to religion or religious causes, our churches, synagogues , etc in 2017. Right behind religion was education where Americans gave $58.90 billion dollars. Followed by human services at $50 billion, then foundations, health organizations, public-society benefit organizations, arts and culture, international affairs and rounded up by the environment and animal causes.
Regardless of the cause or the way in which we gave last year, we gave. More than that, we gave big! $400 billion dollars worth of giving. While the number is important and impressive, what is even more impressive is that despite our challenges at getting along with one another politically, we still at our core believe that we are all here to serve one another. Our actions are proof.
charity Matters.
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT, IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.
A few weeks ago, a young lady that has helped start and run a local nonprofit asked me to write her a recommendation for The Barron Prize for Young Heroes, which I happily did. This high school girl is extraordinary and I was thrilled to help. More than that I was excited to learn about this incredible award and nonprofit that inspires and encourages students between the ages of 8 and 18 to use heroic qualities like courage, compassion and perseverance to make a positive and significant impact on the world.
The prize was started by New York Times best selling Children’s author, T.A. Barron seventeen years ago and named after the author’s mother. His hope was to inspire children that could make a significant difference in the world. The founder’s fear was that perhaps, they wouldn’t be able to find these children. However,it was just the opposite, hundreds and hundreds of applications would begin to come in.
Seventeen years later, the Barron Prize for Young Heroes has honored over 417 young heroes who have all done remarkable things. One prize winner is Alexa, who created a nonprofit called Bags of Books, which she started at age 10. Her organization distributes gently used and new children’s books in free pop-up stores in underserved communities. She has donated more than 120,000 books and inspired hundreds of volunteers to distribute books in homeless shelters, children’s hospitals and after school programs.
One young prize winner founded NY is a great place to Bee! to educate the public about bees about the importance of healthy bee populations. She built a team of volunteers and they have educated over 14,000 students about ways to protect bees through her advocacy.
Another inspiring change maker, Jahkil, founded Project I Am to help the homeless in Chicago. In one year Jahkil and his team distributed more than 3,000 Blessing Bags filled with toiletry items, towels, socks and snacks through his drop off sites and bag stuffing parties all at the age of nine!
While I could go on with hundreds more of these incredible young nonprofit founders and budding philanthropist, these 417 Barron Prize for Young Heroes winners have combined raised over 19 million dollars for their causes in the past seventeen years. The real winners of this prestigious award are the incredible communities served by these extraordinary young leaders and their enormous compassion to serve. Each of them give us hope for a brighter future of kindness, caring and service.
charity matters.
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
“Every new beginning comes from other beginnings end.”
Senea
May. A month full of joy. Sunshine, springtime, Mother’s Day, graduations and Memorial Day….I think of May as the gateway to summer. So how can we not be excited about that? The dictionary defines the word May as meaning “expressing possibility.” I can think of no better way to describe a month that is exactly that….so full of possibility.
Today is May Day, which is a holiday that is believed to have been started in Roman Britain around 2,000 years ago. Soldiers celebrated the arrival of spring by dancing around decorated trees thanking their goddess, Flora. Today, we still celebrate May Day but use the May pole instead of a tree….which must have been tricky…just sayin.
Here is to a month full of possibility, beauty, spring, celebrations and new beginnings. Wishing you the most joyful month!
charity matters.
Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.
