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Charity Matters Inspiration

Across the finish line!

For the past twelve years you have been a part of my life. When I started Charity Matters in 2011 our sons were 15, 13 and 9 years old.  You have followed our families journey from the last football game to taking our first son to college and everything in between. I wrote about it all and you not only read these crazy stories, you replied, you understood and cheered us on. It was as if I were running a race and all of you have been on the side lines cheering. So many miles were tough and you got me through. As in most races, the clarity comes once you have finished and in looking back.

I remember getting on the team football bus for our middle son’s last game and having parents passing the post I had written around the bus on their phones. People hugging and thanking  me for expressing their feelings about The Last Pass post. It was the first time I really realized people were actually reading Charity Matters.

Each Christmas Charity Matters shared the Raising Philanthropic Children post as we tried so hard to guide our sons towards service. Teaching them to find their gifts and those they had to share with the world. You cheered them  on as they served so many great organizations and helped start a few. More than that, you shared what your kids were now doing which was even better.

When I dropped our oldest son off at college I was devastated. Again, all of you were there. I wrote this post and you sent so many supportive notes I could cry just thinking about them. You began the TCU journey of service with me as well. Then watched as I made The Last Lunch and the second son become a Horned Frog and finally the third.

Each ceremony marked the ever quickening passage of time. It was if each ceremony was a mile markers in a marathon. Some miles were harder than others.  When our youngest graduated high school and we became empty nesters, those struggles were real. The post, Someday has Arrived is a reminder of those struggles.  Supposedly, the last few miles of the marathon always are.

Then that moment comes when you see the finish line. It doesn’t seem real or possible. The race has been so long. The push for homework, for grades, not to mention the finances of it all. It feels as if it will never end. Suddenly, there you are …at your youngest child’s college graduation. Is it real? The finish line always seemed so far away. Now it is right in front of you, the final marker. How did the race go by so fast?

You push through that finish line with hands raised and a feeling of incredible joy. Your heart is filled with pride and beating so fast. The pictures are snapped marking this incredible moment. The diploma is given. You reach your neck out for the medal. The ticker tape flies. The crowd cheers (that’s you). And in a blink the race is over.

You have raised three great men. They are employed and launched. You smile, you cry, pat yourself on the back and then you wonder…now what?

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Episode 57: Mission Launch

Did you know one in three Americans have an arrest or conviction record? That means almost 80 million Americans today have an arrest or conviction rate. Today’s guest is no stranger to these numbers, she is actually part of that statistic. Since April is Second Chance month there seems to be no better time to talk about new beginnings than today.

Join us to learn the incredible story of one woman’s journey from prison to nonprofit founder. Teresa Hodge is an absolute inspiration. Learn about Teresa’s tireless work to help those who have been incarcerated rebuild their lives with her organization Mission Launch.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Mission Launch does?

Teresa Hodge: Mission Launch is focused on helping the men and women who have arrest or conviction records get back on their feet. The reentry process is where we focus. Reentry is that period of time right after they come in contact with the legal system. It is when they’re just trying to get back on their feet and reintegrate back into society. We  focus on helping people with jobs, housing and getting into higher education. 

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Mission Launch ?

Teresa Hodge: One of my dad’s favorite statements was when life gives you lemons make lemonade. I was an entrepreneur and  part of a group of other entrepreneurs. The company we founded was investigated by the government. From the moment the company was investigated, my life just drastically changed. I spent about five or six years, fighting the charges. When I went to trial, I knew very little about our criminal legal system.  I went to trial and  lost.  As a result of that, I was given an 87 month federal prison sentence or seven years and three months. I was the first person in my family to be charged and I was heartbroken and devastated. 

I just knew that there had to be meaning and a greater purpose. In hindsight, it was as if all seeds have been planted. One of those seeds was  how was I going to use my time in prison? When I looked at the time, I said, “God, when I come out, what I’m going to know the most about?  What will be the most relevant from going to prison?” 

It was about 10 days after I was convicted, that I began writing a version of the work that I’m doing now.  I had experienced about five years of fighting on the front side. I was scared to death, quite frankly. Seven months felt like a life sentence, but seven years, three months was unimaginable. So it was just a really difficult time. What I knew was that if I could survive it, that I was going to bring good out of it.

The reality is I actually had to endure the long journey of incarceration. That was the lemon and it was a long time sucking on those sour lemons. I was already as an entrepreneur and knew how to write business plans.  As you know,  I was a part of a captive audience in prison. So I was able to ask questions and do market research.  I watched women leave prison and then I watched come back.  Why would someone return? I didn’t understand and was baffled.  

The thought is prison is supposed to do some level of correcting while people are incarcerated.  And yet, when people return, there’s often no pathway back. While I was sitting in prison I just felt like I’m going to create the pathway that I need to go back. And I’m going to bring all of those experiences and all those stories into my design so that we create enough pathways for people who were trying their best. 

I came home in 2012 and we started Mission Launch in 2012.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Teresa Hodge:  The challenges were I was underfunded. I knew a lot about prison but I knew nothing about a nonprofit. We were new entity and were unknown. And we had this huge vision for how we could disrupt and change and make life and society better for all of us. In the end, I had the ability to stick to something. And so and to learn and to evolve and to grow,  I’ve been able to navigate to a good place. 

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

Teresa Hodge: We measure Deep Impact, the stories and the people that we can talk about.  I can tell you a story of a young man who came into our hackathon just a few days after being home from prison, and he just had lots of potential. He didn’t want to work at McDonald’s and he had the ability to do something different. And he was inspired to start a business and struggled to start the business. Long story short, today, he runs a National Cooperative. He now hires other formerly incarcerated people. That idea and  the ability to build that was birthed inside of a space that we hosted. I served on his board for a while. We validated him, incubated him and were his fiscal sponsor. So it’s that level of deep impact 

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

Teresa Hodge: I want to shorten the time it takes a person to come home and get back on their feet after incarceration.  The big dream is for us to have a national strategy with a localized approach. Reentry is hyperlocal. Right? The statistics are one in three Americans have an arrest or conviction record. That means over 70 million, almost 80 million Americans today have an arrest or conviction rate. It’s staggering and not a small number.

I am on a mission to normalize the fact that we have so many people in our country with an arrest or conviction record. If we normalize that as a fact, then we can move beyond the fact that a person has a record. Then we can create all the pathways of opportunities for 80 million people.

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

Teresa Hodge: I think the greatest life lesson is for me was in prison, when my life became smaller.  It’s had so much meaning when my life in prison was the great equalizer. When you think of one in three Americans who have an arrest or conviction record, prison is a microcosm of the United States. It’s a microcosm of society. It’s disproportionately black and brown. People who go to prison are gay and straight,  black, white, brown, yellow, Native American and all religions. In that moment, we all just wanted the same thing to endure and get back home.  I learned to be so accepting of so many people and cultures  that maybe I would not have been. So I think the greatest lesson is we’re just more alike than we are not.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Teresa Hodge: I have and I am currently on a mission to restore some of the joy. I have been heads down doing this work for 11 years. So it’s changed me in the sense that I’m a workaholic and I’m too focused on it. Now I’m on a mission  to let up a little bit. You’ve done your part. It may or may not be fixed in your lifetime but you’re going to do your contribution. And that’s all you can do.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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All good things must come to an end

As many of you know, I fell in love almost a decade ago with TCU. Yes, it was an unexpected love affair that I really never saw coming. The best relationships usually are the ones that blind side and blow us away.

Ten years ago, my oldest son was admitted to TCU. Through a crazy twist of fate,  I interviewed a nonprofit founder named Ann Louden, for this blog. The interview happened late afternoon on the day before my son left for college. In full disclosure, I knew I was interviewing someone who had started a breast cancer nonprofit. She was in Pasadena filming a video for her organization with Josh Grobin. Other than that, I didn’t know anything but her name.

Short story long, Ann Louden did start a great cancer nonprofit that was called…wait for it…TCU Frogs for a Cure. You may remember the post?  If not you can find it here. Ann is the woman who brought pink to all football games in October. After an inspirational conversation and connection with Ann, we became fast friends. She asked me if I had interest in getting involved at TCU.  I honestly answered, “No.” In that moment, my singular focus was packing and getting my son off to college. In hindsight, she was getting ready to set me up on a blind date.

photo via: WestFWlifestyle.com

A few days later, I called her back. I told Ann that there was something incredibly special about this school. After time spent there, I would be happy to help. And looking back, that was the beginning of the love affair. You know, the early phase of love when you get to know one another? In getting to know TCU, I really liked what saw.  Happy and kind people, a thriving campus and people that were connected and going places. Ann then asked,” Do you want to join the Chancellor’s Advisory Council?” The invitation felt like a first date. I accepted and joined an incredible group of alumni, donors, friends and parents at TCU.

When you fall in love there are a number of things that happen. You begin to take stock of qualities you admire and strive for. There was no shortage of admirable traits. I witnessed exceptional leadership, vision, connection and community at TCU. Our group met every few months. I found myself looking forward to our meetings. Because like all good love affairs it is so fun learning about the other person. In this case it was a college I was learning about but I was head over heals. Regardless,  we learned about everything  from; the campus of the future, supporting student athletes,  admissions, providing students with a life full of meaning to opening a medical school. With each meeting and conversation I became a little more smitten.

Last week, I went back to Fort Worth for my last Chancellor’s Advisory Council (CAC) meeting. Insert big sad sigh here. The love affair wasn’t over but it looked like after a decade we were going to have to make this relationship more long distance than it already was. While it felt like a break up, it wasn’t.  It was however, my final meeting. In looking back, so many things we discussed that were mere ideas ten years ago had become realities.

The medical school the Chancellor and board dreamed of opened. The first class of TCU Medical School graduates this year! That National Championship Game…well we did get there. Boy was it memorable! The buildings that were built,  celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the school and the list goes on and on.

Like all good love you learn from it. This experience taught me so much, most especially about leadership. Watching a great leader is a gift. When you see a visionary in action, it is a privilege. Seeing the accomplishments from the past decade at TCU is truly remarkable. Time at TCU has been a lesson is vision, communication, connection, consensus, mentoring and service. What was not to love?

So while this love affair isn’t over, my time at TCU is coming to an end. Our youngest graduates in eight weeks and it is time to close this incredible chapter. To say my heart is heavy would be an understatement. I am forever grateful for my time with TCU, the lessons learned and all the amazing people I met. Endings are never easy. Ultimately, it is the people, the friendships made and the all the great memories that make the endings so worth it.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Snowed in and the kindness of strangers

I am interrupting this regularly scheduled podcast to share a recent story of kindness. Each week we share others stories but this week I thought I would share something that happened to me a couple weeks back. As many of you have seen on the national news that recent snow storms hit our local LA mountains, the San Bernardino Mountains.

My husband’s family has had a home there for years and it is a very special place for us. We don’t spend much time at the lake in the winter but it is always a treat to get away. When we had a call that there was water left on in the house, we decide to make a quick trip up. The thought of bursting pipes with freezing temperatures and a pending storm was big motivation.

Our plan was to go up early Friday morning and head back down on Sunday. We both had flights in opposite directions scheduled for Tuesday. So we wanted to make sure we had time to get ready for our upcoming business trips.  So we grabbed two days of food and put chains on our four wheel drive and hit the road.

The previous storm had left a couple of feet of snow that had yet to be plowed. When we got to the house we were surprised by how much snow we hadn’t been plowed. We were sure that the plows were just backed up and would eventually get to us. So we enjoyed our home, the fire, the s’mores, secured the house and settled in.

However, on Sunday morning when we hadn’t seen the plows and the snow kept piling up at a rapid pace, we got a little nervous. I called our local Fire Department which is about a mile away.  When I asked if they had seen any plows. The fireman said, “ No we haven’t seen them in a few days.  We heard that all of the plowing equipment was sent off the mountain to open the Cajon Pass.”  That’s when we became nervous. If the Fire Department can’t get out to help people then things were worse than we realized.

We shoveled snow off the dock, from around the house and quickly realized we had used up most of our food. That wasn’t our big concern. Rather it was getting down the next day to make our flights. We began reading the local Facebook post with people that were much worse off than we were. People without heat, power, firewood, food, medicine and the list went on and on.

So Monday morning when we had eaten the last of our food we thought we would try to shovel our way out. Well, that didn’t go so well and we got stuck. Once we dug the car out and had it back in the garage, my husband had an idea. He went onto the local Facebook group and asked if anyone had plowed roads within a mile of our home. In addition, he asked, if anyone was going down the mountain and could we get a ride?

That is when this story took a very different turn. Strangers named Debbie and Dustin replied to our online plea. They said that they were leaving in less than an hour if we could get to their home. So we turned off that water, grabbed our computers, our dog and left. We left behind our clothes, our car and hiked out about a mile in hip deep snow towards total strangers.

The second storm had now hit and snow was dumping down. When we got to their car we were told they were taking two cars down in order to pick up family friends coming into LAX the next day. They loaded us in, put a dog bed out for our dog and drove us down the hill and off the mountain. We passed tons of abandoned cars on our way down and saw the carnage from the past week’s storm on the roads.

When we got to the bottom of the hill, in two cars, we saw news crews and so many people detained trying to get back up the mountain. Police had closed the road back up due to the danger. We filled up our new friends car with gas and asked where they were going to stay for the night? They didn’t have a plan for their family that included two teenage boys and two chocolate labs. So we invited them to stay with us and they accepted.

It isn’t every day that you Facebook hitch hike and meet strangers who blindly take you into their cars. Alternatively, I don’t think we have ever invited strangers to sleep over at our house but we did. This experience left such an impact on us both. There is such power in the kindness. We are all so afraid and so nervous to open ourselves up. I am the biggest fraidy cat of them all!  However, this experience made me realize just how walled off we all are and how easy it  can be to open up.

It wasn’t just our situation that brought out the best in everyone, it happened all over the mountain. Neighbors checking on neighbors. People bringing others into their homes, shoveling snow for their elderly neighbors, delivering food and so much more. I’m not sure why it takes the worst situations to bring our the best in all of us, but it does.

We are incredibly grateful for Debbie and Dustin for their extraordinary kindness. If we could all be little more open and loving like our new friends the world would be a much 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. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

 

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Episode 54: One Block UWS

Have you ever walked by litter or a pile of trash on a city sidewalk? Most of us have and keep walking, thinking it may smell or what a mess. How many of us would stop and try to figure out how to clean up their neighborhood? I haven’t but today’s guest Ann Cutbill Lenane did just that. She not only saw a growing problem but she rolled up her sleeves to do something about it.

Ann Cutbill Lenane is a very successful residential realtor in the Upper West Side of New York City and is the founder of One Block UWS.  Join us today for an inspirational conversation about one woman’s journey to clean up her neighborhood, employee people in need of jobs and revive a community One Block at a time.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what ONE Block does?

Ann Cutbill Lenane: One Block is a nonprofit that facilitates the filling of more than 1,000 bags of trash every week on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. We coordinate group events so neighbors can connect and clean their community. In addition we employ three full time workers who were formerly homeless.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start ONE Block?

Ann Cutbill Lenane: Back in 2020 New York City had $106 million dollar budget cut to their sanitation. As you can only imagine NYC was a very scary place to be during the pandemic. During the pandemic, on the Upper West Side where I work as a residential realtor there are three homeless shelters. Eight hundred homeless were moved into hotels during the pandemic on the Upper West Side. People were really upset.

Regardless of that situation, I saw the neighborhood begin to turn in a really bad direction. This neighborhood where I raised my kids and still work was something out of a zombie apocalypse. I saw the neighborhood going in a very bad direction.  In the 1980s, I remembered what Mayor Giulani said about cleaning up neighborhoods. He said, ” If we start by cleaning up the trash and the graffiti then people will feel better about being there and be more respectful towards their neighborhood.” So while I didn’t have a solution for the homeless problem, I figured I could find a way to get trash picked up. I can start with the garbage.

I also had three homeless shelters with people who needed work. So I thought, simple I will hire a few people who need jobs and we will go clean up some garbage. However, it wasn’t that simple. We ultimately reached out to ACE a program that trains unhoused people on the skills needed to help us. The real breakthrough happened when the local neighbors, who were upset by the homeless situation started a Facebook page. It was 2020 and we were all locked up and this Facebook page had 16,000 followers instantly. One day a neighbor on the page said,”Who wants to help sign up to clean up garbage?”

I met with my young neighbor from Texas. We all started signing up and cleaning the neighborhood. Next thing we did was hire an attorney to help us get our 501c3.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Ann Cutbill Lenane: Some of the early things were easier like getting help from an attorney at Gibson Dunn to help us with a 501C3. Our weekly cleanups and communication was easy because of the Facebook page and group. We had great community involvement. Most importantly, I was able to gather our neighbors emails through the Facebook page which Facebook no longer allows. Capturing our communities information was so important so that we could keep everyone informed of our progress. Those things were relatively easy.

As far as challenges, we had people leaving the route because of drugs that we had to fire. We had people selling our trash bags for money. Our employees couldn’t find restrooms in NYC. We gave employees gift cards so employees could get lunch and use the restrooms where they ate. Our employees didn’t have shoes. We went back to our newsletter and asked our neighbors for help to support the people we hired to help clean our neighborhood .

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

Ann Cutbill Lenane: We have a woman named Jackie who takes care of everyone on our team. The thought that she wouldn’t have a job does fuels me. Each month we wonder if we can go on with our funding. I can’t picture these people without One Block. I want these people to be stable, to be appreciated and to have good lives.

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

Ann Cutbill Lenane: There isn’t a block that one of our employees is working that people don’t approach them and say, “Thank you.” Putting a face and a name on a person who could easily become invisible in New York City changes that for everyone. 

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

Ann Cutbill Lenane: Sometimes you think life is supposed to go in a certain direction and it doesn’t. I can only help along the way and I know we are making an imprint on these people’s lives. You can only do what you can do. You just never know what your impact is on someones life. The Upper West Side is cleaner, our team has shoes and we keep putting good out into the universe. 

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

Ann Cutbill Lenane: The dream would be to be able to support the people that work for us. Getting them into a stable situation and lift them up. It’s not about One Block and garbage but about the people who need a leg up.

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

Ann Cutbill Lenane: I’ve learned the power of one, which becomes the power of many. The impact is huge. I am used to speaking to people everyday and connecting people. What is your super power? You have one and how will you share it? 

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Ann Cutbill Lenane: . We were blessed by something that felt like the end of the world during Covid. Something great came out of all of this. You have to start with one small act. Many people want to help. One person one block at a time.

CHARITY MATTERS.

To Support One Block UWS

www.oneblockuws.org

[email protected]

Instagram: @oneblockwestside

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Cancer

Pablove

The world is full of amazing and inspiring humans, they are all around us. When you have a moment to learn someone’s life story, it is a privilege to share it.  Since February 4th was World Cancer Day I thought we would take a look back at the fantastic conversation with Jo Ann Thrailkill, the founder of Pablove.org. Jo Ann founded Pablove to honor her son Pablo and to invest in underfunded cutting edge pediatric cancer research and improve the lives of children living with cancer through the arts.  I know she will warm your heart  and inspire you as much as she did me.

Here are some highlights from  our conversation:

Charity Matters: What was your background before starting Pablove?

JoAnn Thrailkill: In my 20s through my 40s I was a music video producer. I absolutely loved my job and was living a dream. I was a single mother with a fantastic life and career. When I met my husband Jeff, who is also in the music business, and we had our son Pablo, I decided to slow my career down a bit and focus on my family and time with my two sons.

When Pablo was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer in May of 2008 everything changed. I went from producing music videos to trying to Executive Produce Pablo’s treatment and care. While Pablo was sick we had so many people who wanted to help, bring food, do something. A co-worker of my husbands, started a PayPal account just so people could do something. We were so involved with Pablo we weren’t really aware of how many people were supporting us through this. 

Charity Matters: When did you realize you were going to start a nonprofit?

Jo Ann Thrailkill: When Pablo died six days after his 6th birthday we were devastated,bereft and overcome by grief. We were also overcome by people’s kindness and generosity. People really wanted to help us in so many ways, it was overwhelming. When we went to gather pictures for his memorial service, we found so many photos that Pablo had taken with all of our devices. They were everywhere and we had no idea he was such a photographer.

A few months after his death, my husband decided to ride his bike across the country, to deal with his grief and process all that had happened. When he came back, his co-worker asked, “What do you want to do with this PayPal account and the funds?” To be honest we had forgotten about the account and didn’t think it could have had more than a couple thousand dollars. To our total surprise there was over $250,000 and in that moment we felt an overwhelming responsibility to all of these people who had supported us and Pablo.

When my husband said, “You need to executive produce this,” meaning the beginning of Pablove.org, that was the moment.

Charity Matters: Where did you start?

Jo Ann Thrailkill: I went to see Pablo’s doctor, to get a direction and he asked me, ” What would you have wanted that you didn’t have when Pablo was sick?” And my answer was a cure. So I knew we were going to need to invest in research since pediatric cancer research is so underfunded, only 4% of cancer research funding goes towards childhood cancer.

He then asked me what Pablo would have wanted and I knew it was something in the arts and Pablo loved photography. I knew that Pablo just wanted to feel like a kid when he was sick and that his photography had been a form of self-expression. So that is how we began the Shutterbugs program which teaches children and teens with cancer the art of photography.

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

Jo Ann Thrailkill: When the kids tell us that working with a camera and photography has been a life changing experience for them. That is when you don’t want to stop and know you need to keep going. In addition, to know that we have created an organization that is filled with optimism, joy and laughter. 

Charity Matters: Tell us the success you have had?

Jo Ann Thralkill: Our very first year in 2010, my husband did a bike ride across the country again but this time to raise funds for The Pablove Foundation and we raised over $500,000. The momentum continued and we were able to fund a grant our first year. Today, almost ten years later we have thousands of Shutterbugs in 16 cities across the country and have provided seed funding for pediatric cancer.

Since 2010, we have awarded more than two million dollars in Childhood Cancer Research Grants to over twenty institutions worldwide.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this journey and how has it changed you?

Jo Ann Thrailkill:  This entire experience has been completely life-altering for me. I think one of the major things I took away from my own family’s cancer experience was that just when you think the world is filled with darkness and hate, you discover that it is actually filled with love.

Things don’t always end up how you hope or plan that they will, but when we were in the trenches of treatment with Pablo we discovered the most amazing support from our community and everyone around us. This gave us not only the financial support but the emotional strength that we needed to start the Pablove Foundation. The experience of starting Pablove has allowed me to always see the light. I am now reminded daily of the love that surrounded me during one of the most difficult times in my life.

charity Matters

 

Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Looking back at a Force for Good

max page, the force

This weekend  millions of us will watch the Super Bowl and of course those very pricey ads. I thought it might be worth revisiting the one of my favorite philanthropic friends, Max Page. You might remember Max from his starring Super Bowl ad as Darth Vadar, a few years back.

Max has been a patient at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles  many times in his short life for multiple heart surgeries. He was born with a congenital heart defect and over the years has had over 13 surgeries. Each year over 40,000 are born with congenital heart disease. Since February is heart month and the Super Bowl, Max has been on my mind.

I met Max and his family when we worked together to launch the Junior Ambassador Program at CHLA . The Page family are some of the most philanthropic people I know. They have used their situation and celebrity to the benefit of others time and time again.

Max continues his acting and his passion for philanthropy. His hope is that if someone is inspired to do something because of his journey, that they would consider supporting a place that has given him so much and become a second home, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Heart Ambassadors program. Max said in an interview with Today, “I’m going to do whatever I can to help and do the best to bring awareness to kids like me.”  

Max’s heart may have been defected once upon a time, but today it is his heart and use of the Force that continues to inspire 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. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Season Five Premier: Susan Axelrod CURE Epilepsy

Welcome to Season Five! It is truly remarkable to believe that we launched the Charity Matters Podcast just two years ago. In that time we have introduced you to some of the brightest lights on earth, those who serve. We promise Season Five has an incredible line up of people who will inspire you, give you hope and renew your faith in humanity. These nonprofit founders are not only entrepreneurs but they are problem solvers and doers. Each story gives us hope that we can tackle any obstacle in our own lives no matter how big.

Today’s guest is a perfect example of one woman with a huge goal.  Susan Axelrod is the founder of Cure Epilepsy. She will inspire you with the remarkable story of her journey to find a cure for epilepsy to help her daughter. It is a story you don’t want to miss and the perfect way to start your year and ours.  Susan set out to achieve a goal 25 years ago. Each year Susan and her community  paved the way and ultimately raising ninety million dollars towards epilepsy research. Her work and story should inspire anyone with a goal that feels too big.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what CURE Epilepsy does?

Susan Axelrod: Cure Epilepsy is singularly focused on funding research in epilepsy. This actually started because I am the mother of a now 41 year old daughter with epilepsy. It started in her infancy and after many sort of tortured years of trying to resolve her problems. I started to meet some other parents and recognize that there was a woeful lack of of dollars and attention to epilepsy, both federal government funds and private dollars. That’s our focus because we want to eliminate epilepsy.

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

Susan Axelrod:  My daughter had been happy, normal, healthy baby until she was seven months old.  And she started to have a seizure, which was terrifying to witness as many seizures are. She was she was blue, I thought she was dying. I took her to the emergency room. While waiting to be seen there, she had another one of these episodes, which I still didn’t know what it was. In 1985, I received a report on an EEG that she had had. The report said something about epileptiform activity, and I panicked. I called her doctor, and I said, “Are you telling me she now also has epilepsy?”

I had started to meet some other parents with epilepsy through a support group, which I got wind of waiting in a doctor’s office, which we spent hours waiting in doctors offices and saw notice for a support group and met a few parents who fast forward a little bit ended up being some of my co founders of cure with.

Lauren, my daughter, had a surgical procedure to try to determine whether there was an area in her brain that they could resect that might help. There was indication for the first time that maybe they’d actually localized the focal point.  So we put her through a pretty horrific and barbaric procedure. They literally bored holes in her skull and  implanted electrodes and the  procedure ended up with nothing.

I sat there with my husband and we didn’t know what to do.  Later that evening, I thought to myself, you know, I can either cry for the rest of my life, or I can just slap myself in the face and do something. That is a really clear memory for me,  just saying that’s it, I’m done. I’m done waiting for anybody to provide answers. It just felt like I had to right this wrong and t was just wrong. 

Charity Matters: When did you know you were on the right path?

Susan Axelrod: We knew we had to raise dollars and that was critical. We were very fortunate in that my husband had done some work with Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady. Towards the end of 1998, he was meeting with her and she asked how Lauren was doing. She said, “Is there anything I can do to help from my position?” 

She agreed to to be the keynote speaker at our first fundraiser in Chicago. January of 1998.  I’ve never put on an event in my life. The First Lady spent the afternoon visiting our hospital and learning about epilepsy.  Then she came and did the event. She spoke just eloquently about epilepsy and about what she learned that day.  Well, we had a lot of people that were there for her, who were just blown away by her. That was a big aha moment. Three months after we founded the organization  people were writing notes and were calling they were telling me that night I had no idea about epilepsy. We thought, okay, if people don’t know about epilepsy, they’re not going to give money to epilepsy. 

photo via: Boston Globe

Charity Matters: What were some of your earlier challenges?

Susan Axelrod: My daughter used to miss about a third of every school year just because of seizures. So there were times when I couldn’t get out of the house. The internet was relatively new at the time and email was like a brand new thing. We were working together and we loved each other. And we loved the work and it gave us hope. If we had an event or mailing to do, we all gathered for a long weekend, and stuffed envelopes and licked stamps. Epilepsy is a pretty lonely diagnosis and this gave us a community.

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

Susan Axelod:  I think the very first thing that we did that was huge and life altering for the epilepsy community was to change the conversation. And that was both between patients, families, and researchers and doctors.  I wanted to know, along with my co founders and other people who were working with Cure Epilepsy, why? Why did I have this seven month old baby, that was fine one day and not fine the next day? Nobody to this day yet has been able to answer that. 

I think we’ve, we’ve really gotten the community away from thinking, let’s just create another drug that’s going to maybe reduce the seizures  50% of the time. In our book, that’s not okay. It’s great. I should say that my daughter responded to a one of these new medications in April of 2000.

We’ve we have funded over 280 research grants around the country.  We have opened up new areas of exploration in terms of what they’re looking at and how it affects epilepsy and the development of epilepsy. Those are areas that we were willing to take risks. So I think that’s another thing that all nonprofit can do because who’s else is going to do it? 

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

Susan Axelrod: The happiest day of my life would be shutting down the office, closing the door, locking it up, because mission accomplished, right? That would be that would be amazing.

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

Susan Axelod: I’ve learned the importance of community, the importance of being inclusive, the importance of bringing all players with any sort of potential interest  in your cause together. And that it’s very grounding. It’s very humbling. But I think  it’s been one of the more amazing life lessons and it translates beyond my work with CURE.

Everybody has some value and something to contribute.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Inspiration

Chasing the Insights

If the past twelve days are any indication of what 2023 is going to be like then I think its time to buckle up! Our 2022 ended on New Year’s Eve with our TCU Horned Frogs beating Michigan at the Fiesta Bowl. It was an unexpected win and crazy game that brought our small school from Fort Worth onto a National Stage. The game and experience brought so much more than football.

Our New Year began with a crew of our youngest son’s fellow TCU students as house guests. Each counting the days until the National championship game, that was earlier this week. The odds of TCU even getting to this place were 250 to one. So to say that the journey has been a crazy one would be an understatement. It had all of the making of a Hollywood movie with small town boy as quarterback at small Texas school making it to the National Championship. Except perhaps the ending. It wasn’t the big Hollywood finish but the opposite.

Life isn’t Hollywood. Nor is life about a singular destination, it is about the insights and lessons learned along the way. Life is about the journey and not the destination. The journey in these past two weeks has been a brilliant reminder that we are all here to learn and enjoy the ride. We are here to chase the insights and gather lessons from each experience in order to grow and evolve as the best versions of ourselves.

You may remember that last week I wrote about New Year’s goals, about being open to receiving, asking for help and promoting the message of goodness that is Charity Matters. Well, ask and you shall receive. My plea to the universe was answered from across the globe. An extremely popular podcaster, Vince Warnock invited me to be a guest on his show, Chasing the Insights. Vince has a huge international audience and it’s pretty obvious why.

He is bursting with positive energy, kindness and goodness on his quest to help entrepreneurs launch their business. We talked about ways to bring good and philanthropy into everything you do. His message is that we are all here to learn from each other and help one another.  Our conversation, which you can listen to below, was a terrific reminder of just that.

So as we wrap up the second week of 2023, I hear the universe speaking loud and clearly. Life  isn’t about the destination but the journey. TCU had an incredible journey and took all of us on it. We didn’t win but we met so many incredible people along the way and learned so much. Thank you Vince Warnock for reminding us that this is what matters. Chase the insights and leave a path of kindness along the way.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2023 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Holidays and Holiday Giving

Raising Philanthropic Children

Raising philanthropic children 2014

I am always so amazed that is the same time each year that I find people asking for suggestions on raising philanthropic children. Once again, it’s worth sharing.

While my sons are far from the poster children for philanthropy, they certainly do a lot to help others. I am proud that each of our sons has found different ways to give back and share the gifts that they have been given. Now in their twenties their giving is changing yet again. Time is now a rare gift so the older two are giving funds while our youngest is still involved in volunteering for his favorite cause.

Each year at Thanksgiving, we sit down as a family and decide what our family will do this season to help others. We have adopted soldiers for a year, adopted families over the holidays that could not have Christmas, we have wrapped gifts at local Childrens Hospitals and voted on which non-profits we want to support. Each person trying to convince the others why their cause is most worthy.

The reality is that there is no simple answer to this question and that raising charitable children is an ongoing process. A study from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University said, “the research showed that talking to children about giving increased by 20 percent the likelihood that children would give.”

Here are a few tips to remember as we approach the season of giving:

Six Tips for Raising charitable children:

  1. Start early, as early as 4 or 5 years old. Giving becomes a habit.
  2. Talk to your children about what causes interest them and bring causes to their attention.
  3. Be intentional by involving your children in your own charity endeavors.
  4. Use online tools to research organizations to involve your children
  5. Be consistent. Make charity a part of your traditions, the holidays and birthdays.
  6. Emphasize the joy because giving feels great.

Benefits of raising charitable children:

  1. Opens children’s eyes to the fact that others are not as fortunate as they are
  2. Develops empathetic thinking
  3. Fosters an appreciation for what they have
  4. Enhances self-esteem
  5. Correlates to improved performance in school

While this topic is relevant for the holidays, it is important to remember that giving does not just happen once a year. Teaching the gifts you receive from giving should become a way of life not seasonal. Once your children feel how great it is to give, their lives will forever be altered in wonderful ways.

Charity Matters.

 

Copyright © 2022 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

 

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Causes

Episode 51: Free Wheelchair Mission

Did you know that there are 75 million people on this planet in need of a wheelchair? Can you imagine being disabled  and not having access to get around? That is only one of the amazing insights I learned from today’s guest, Don Schoendorfer. Don is the founder of Free Wheelchair Mission. His story is incredible, as is his work in providing over one million wheelchairs to people in need.

Join us today to learn how a MIT Biomedical engineer changed his life and millions of others. You won’t want to miss this amazing conversation. Don Schoendorfer is a truly special human who is an inspiration for all with his journey of service.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Free WheelChair Mission does?

Don Schoendorfer: We’ve designed and learned how to manufacture an inexpensive, durable functional wheelchair that we provide for free to people in developing countries who need a wheelchair. World Health Organization’s estimates that there are 75 million people in need of a wheelchair around the world.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Free Wheelchair Mission?

Don Schoendorfer: My father worked in a railroad for 49 years as a machinist. One of my older brothers was a chemical engineer and the other one’s a civil engineer.  I just knew from the way we operated at home, always taking things apart and putting them back together, that I would be an engineer. I always knew I was going to do something to help people.

About twenty years ago, we went on a vacation to Morocco.  The first day we were in a very old part of the city, Toronto, probably built during the Crusades. There were dirt roads, buildings close to each other just wide enough for a wagon and donkey to get by. Between the legs of people commuting back and forth on foot, we saw a woman drag herself across the dirt road. She was using her fingernails for traction. And she’s looking at her hands. She’s not looking at anything else but her hands and she’s very careful about how she places them. Her feet were just dragging behind her. Like, they’re just connected to her and they’re not functioning in any way.  She was  bleeding, very filthy and her clothes are torn.

 It was our first trip in a developing country and we were shocked. Shocked at her appearance, but also shocked at the fact that people were just basically just stepping over her. Like she was some kind of garbage and not helping her. We went home and got on with our lives. That’s what I did for 20 more years. Every now and then something would remind me or in the middle of the night. I  would wake up and I’d be thinking about that woman and the struggle she had just to keep alive. 

Charity Matters: What Happened 20 years after you saw that woman?

Don Schoendorfer: A call from God in the middle of the night, in 2001.  He said, “I need to talk to you”  What about? He said, ” Why are you wasting your time? “And I said, “What do you mean?” God said,”Why don’t you use the gifts I gave you to do something for the Kingdom?”   I don’t want anybody to misinterpret, I do not have that kind of relationship with communicating with God. But if I summed up what was going through this was really what I came up with, “Hey, I’m an engineer, I’m an inventor, I can do this stuff.”

I thought, where do I focus my energy?  All of a sudden, there’s this woman crawling across the dirt road. What’s the need, what does she need? I go to Toys R Us and I get some bicycles.  Then I go to Home Depot and I get some white resin lawn chairs.  Then I spend five or six months trying to figure out how to effectively connect them together. And, it’s a white resin lawn chair with mountain bike tires. It doesn’t, it doesn’t look like a wheelchair. But I’m thinking that woman probably would have loved to have something like this. 

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

Don Schoendorfer: When I saw this family change.  Can you imagine if you were carrying your 11 year old son with cerebral palsy?  Can you imagine that this boy’s parents had carried him every day of his life. His parents can’t work, and therefore they can’t make enough money to live on.

When they got their son a wheelchair it changed their life. The parents could work and  take their son with them. They could move him to the shade of the rice paddies where they worked. Now, they could both work and they can make enough money to advance a little bit in their economy. Even better they now have the freedom.

Of course, they didn’t know what was going to happen after we put their son in the chair. They probably thought we’re going to take take some pictures and then take it away from him. Instead, we drove away at the end and left that chair to them. We didn’t come back and take the chair. 

These people are already happy. When you give them a wheelchair, it’s so profound. You can just see how hard it is for men to express their gratitude, some are just choked up and they can’t get the words out. They’re just crying and smiling at the same time. The whole family  doesn’t have to carry anyone anymore. He can go by himself. 

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

Don Schoendorfer: Over these last 22 years, we’ve given out over 1.3 million wheelchairs in 94 different countries, developing countries. We don’t give them away in developed countries because there’s usually options for a wheelchair. In the developing world, there’s no option.  If we don’t give him a wheelchair, they’re going to live their life without one. We’ve got partners who actually give the wheelchairs away for us.

So we work through these distribution partners, and we ship them to the closest ocean port, and then they take it from there. At first I was focusing on just the individual, the woman crawling across the road in Morocco, right? And I didn’t see her family, but she probably has one because there’s no way she could keep alive without having a family. After you’ve given away a few wheelchairs you see how it impacts the family because they are the wheelchair.


Photo credit: Ralph Alswang

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Don Schoendorfer:  The people I associate with changed. I’m more associated with people that are in this field of humanitarian efforts.  Most of my best friends are in developing countries and I rarely get the chance to see them.  I always think about them. These are the people that totally live on faith. They don’t know where the next meal is gonna come from. Yet, if they met somebody who needed a shirt, they would take their shirt off and give it to him. And that’s the way they live.

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

Don Schoendorfer: There’s so many other things we can do. Think about what you’re good at. Maybe you get the call from God. Or maybe you don’t. Ask yourself,  what am I really good at? And is that what I’m doing to help people? Am I using those tools to help people?  

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

 If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER.

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Causes

Episode 49: Free to Thrive

In our litigious society, attorneys are rarely the heroes, rather they are usually the villains. However, in this story, the attorney is the hero. Her name is Jamie Beck and she is an attorney whose career took an unexpected turn when she decided to do some pro-bono (free) work for a victim of human trafficking. What happened next is a remarkable journey of service and compassion.

Join us today for an inspirational conversation with Jamie Beck, the Founder of the nonprofit Free to Thrive. Jamie shares with us an insight into human tracking and remarkable work she and her team are doing to help so many.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Free to Thrive does?

Jamie Beck:  Free to Thrive helps human trafficking survivors with their legal needs. We also do policy advocacy, training and education. A big part of our training is to help educate the community about this issue through kind of more traditional trainings. We also produced two films to help the community learn about this issue.  I’m so often surprised about how steep the learning curve is with human trafficking. This is not an issue we talk about as a community and most people don’t even know the basics of human trafficking.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Human Trafficking is?

Jamie Beck:  Human trafficking is essentially  exploiting another person. Generally speaking, it’s exploiting them for sex or labor. It can be other things as well. Really, it’s just taking advantage of someone and using them as a source of free labor.  When we’re talking about retracting, it involves force, fraud, or coercion. When we’re talking about labor trafficking, or sex trafficking, it is any minor involved in the commercial sex. That’s human trafficking, regardless of force, fraud, or coercion. And an adult involved in any sort of commercial sex act requires force, fraud or coercion is human tracking.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Free to Thrive?

Jamie Beck:  I was always very involved in the community growing up, helping out in ways big and small. And that’s something that I grew up with, that mentality of giving back.  I really thought I would do that as a lawyer and that’s a huge part of why I went to law school.

I went to law school wanting to be a public interest lawyer.  Like most law students, I had student debt but got a great opportunity law firm. I said, “I’ll work there for a couple of years, and pay down my student loans, and then I’ll figure out my path from there.” While I was there, the way that I filled my cup of this need to give back and to do some good in my community was through volunteer work and pro bono work at my law firm. That was actually the very beginning of what put me on this path. 

I was really involved in Lawyers Club of San Diego, and taking pro bono cases from local legal nonprofits. I first learned about human trafficking there and discovered there’s a huge need for lawyers to help survivors. And I was like, Okay, well, I’m a lawyer, I can help survivors. So, I took a pro bono case with a survivor who she had some criminal charges related to her trafficking. She came from a loving two parent home. She was very close with her middle class family, a very good student, and was just a normal teenager.  Then she fell in love with an older guy and it was actually him and his family that exploited her. 

There’s so much shame that happens, that she didn’t tell her family was going on. It just kept kind of pulling her further and further into this world. By the time she turned 18, he had complete control over her. She had been kidnapped at that point, and was  no longer able to talk to her family. After I got  to know her story, I helped her with these criminal charges. Essentially,  the ultimate outcome of her criminal case was was an expungement. As a result, we were able to erase her record, or so we thought.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Jamie Beck: One of our challenges is legislative advocacy. In the case above the law and expungement didn’t clear her record. The girl went on to college and she’s trying to get a job and she couldn’t get a job because of her background. They were were running it and her record still showed. We learned there are these laws called vacatur laws that California didn’t have.  So we we had this legislative roundtable where we pitch ideas to elected officials for new bills that will help survivors. Just two months later, in December, we pitched this a local state Senator who took up the bill. He said, “We’re going to pass a vacatures laws.” They did.

Shortly after, a request for proposal or a contract with the County of San Diego for somebody to provide free legal services to trafficking survivors presented itself. This really happened because there was a huge unmet need. Nobody was doing this work in San Diego.  I definitely can’t take all the cases of all the survivors that need this help. We now have this new law. So we have all these survivors who not only need it now, but survivors for years who’ve needed this help, but never get it. So a  huge backlog of cases. At this point, I’ve been involved in anti trafficking work for two or three years and this is now my passion.

 I applied for this funding. I had a name of a nonprofit, I filed articles of incorporation. I’ve created this nonprofit but I don’t have a board, I  just have a name. I had a vision and I understood what the services that we’d offer and how we deliver them. We just didn’t have the funding to do it or the organizational structure to do it.

There was not enough time in the day, I was doing this by myself. We had no staff, we had some pro bono lawyers, and I had some volunteers, but it was just me. So I’m trying to do this by myself and try to get it started with enough very little funding. It was like drinking from a firehose. I think one of the hardest things about being a nonprofit is that there the need for your services. If you are doing something that is having an impact on the community, the need for your services almost always will outpace your capacity to fill it. 

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

Jamie Beck: What fuels me is truly our clients. I mean, they are so incredible. When I think about both their stories and what they’ve overcome pales in comparison to what I’ve experienced. So like on any hard day,  I think about my clients and their strength and their resilience.  I also think about the wins.  We spend a lot of time at Free to Thrive, we have a lot of hard days, and we talk a lot about the wins because they’re so powerful. When we think about what does it mean to have this client’s record completely cleared?  Or what does it mean for her to have a restraining order custody of her child?  These are things that you just can’t quantify the impact on that person’s life, on their children’s life and  on breaking generational cycles. It’s just it’s incredibly powerful.

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

Jamie Beck: So we we’ve been a nonprofit for six years serving clients for five years. You know, the first couple years are our numbers were so small because we’re  trying to get up and running and learning how to do the work. We’re about to hit a huge milestone and just completed our 500th legal matter.

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

Jamie Beck: I have lots of dreams for Free to Thrive both big and small,  short and long term. So the kind of big visionary dream is to be a global organization. To work on this issue, not just locally or regionally but on a on a global level because human trafficking is a global issue. I would love Free to Thrive to be to have a global footprint, and help survivors everywhere.  You know, there’s such a huge unmet need for services for survivors 

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

Jamie Beck:  I’m learning my own strengths and weaknesses and growing as a leader.  It’s one thing to run an organization and it’s another thing to have a staff of people, to be able to have a vision, lead them forward and support them.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Jamie Beck: I’m just constantly learning and growing and finding  how to how to be better and do better.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

New episodes are released every Wednesday!  If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:
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Effective Altruism

Last week I was asked to be a part of an interesting conversation from an East Coast Think Tank. One of the topics that came up was Effective Altruism. Today, I thought we would jump into the topic. There has been a lot of recent talk about the term Effective Altruism. What is exactly is effective altruism?

What is Effective ALTRUISM?

The simplest way to define it is to answer the question, “How do we use our resources to help others? ” In 2011, philosopher Peter Singer began asking these questions of the global community. Since that time there have been a number of books and the movement has grown.

Some of the key leaders in this global movement are Give Well and the organization 80,000 Hours. These two groups are asking questions such as, “Which charities improve global health the most per dollar?” Other questions such as, “How can I use my career to make a difference?”

The 80,000 hours Philosophy

The 80,000 hours philosophy is this: You have about 80,000 hours in your career: 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, for 40 years. That’s more time than you’ll spend eating, socializing, and watching Netflix put together. And it means that time is the biggest resource you have to help others. So if you can increase the overall impact of your career by just a tiny amount, it will likely do more good than changes you could make to other parts of your life.

The Give Well Philosophy

The Give Well Organization wants to help guide you and your dollars towards global issues such as malaria and a host of global issues where your dollar is stretched farther. They are willing to guide you in investing your giving as well. Here are a few of their thoughts: We take zero fees and use our most up-to-date research to grant your gift where we believe it will help the most. We typically grant this pool of funds to one or more of our recommended charities each quarter. Once we grant your donation, we’ll email you to let you know which charity or charities we selected and what we expect your donation will accomplish.

While Effective Altruism is not one organization but rather a global movement with many groups coming together trying to change the way we look at our world’s problems. There is also a large group of people that are trying to get us back to our roots which is taking care of our own communities at home. Another grass roots movement where going local, supporting small business and your local nonprofits versus the global movement presented by effective altruism. The local movement believes that if we each take care of our own communities we will not have to worry about those around the globe. Almost a shift back to the primitive days of tribes when no one in the tribe went hungry.

Both groups want the same thing, and that is to make our world better. Each side of this argument has their own ideas and beliefs. No matter how we help our fellow man, as long as we are helping, well that is good enough for me!

Charity Matters.

 

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Charity Profile

Episode 48: Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation

Growing up in LA the surf culture is a huge part of many of our lives. For those families that live on the water the connection between community, family and ocean is a very special one. Today’s guest, Nancy Miller, raised her family in a beach community where surfing was a huge part of their lives. When an unexpected tragedy happened to their son Jimmy they knew their lives were forever changed.

Join us today for an inspirational story about the power of one family’s love and the incredible legacy Jimmy Miller has left on thousands with the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation. An organization that uses adaptive surfing, to help  children with disabilities, veterans, health care workers and so many more heal through their amazing work and the power of the ocean.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what THE Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation does?

Nancy Miller: The Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation uses surfing and a form of adaptive surfing, that we created, to help those with mental and physical disabilities feel the healing power of the ocean.  Knowing that what we know about how people react to being in the ocean, whether it’s the chemistry of their bodies, their joy,  their happiness, and the complete giddiness of changing their whole mental well being when they go to the beach. So that’s that’s the basis of the Jimmy Miller Foundation. Teaching people to surf using an adaptive form of surfing and combining it with group therapy. The result is letting the healing begin for youth and adults all over the country.

Charity Matters: Did you have a philanthropic BACK-ROUND?

Nancy Miller: Prior to Jimmy Miller foundation, I was a wife, a mom, student, and my jobs have been everything to prepare me for what I’m doing now. I never thought that what I did in the past would so well prepare me for what I’m doing now.  I worked with the Elton John AIDS Foundation when it very first got going, so we’re talking 1994.  And I was lucky enough to be part of a incredible staff there and I did special projects for the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which is a foundation that deals with helping those with HIV and AIDS. 

After I left the Elton John AIDs Foundation, my husband came home saying he had met an amazing man from a board that he was on. His name was Jean-Michel Cousteau.  Everybody knows his father, Jacques Cousteau and the Cousteau Society. Well, Jean-Michel had started his own foundation called Ocean Future Society. And after spending a week with him I signed on to help. 

It was such a joy to work with Ocean Futures and Jean-Michel.  All the people I met that were so they were absolutely consumed with making the world, especially our water world,  safer and better for humans. One of the things that I loved best about Jean-Michel is that he was so non-proprietary. He wanted all the nonprofits in the ocean world to join together. They weren’t in competition to raise funds but they were there to help the world. The way they could help the world was by joining forces. So to me, that was a huge lesson in collaboration on a global scale that I was able to absorb.  I just feel so lucky to have worked with these such exceptional people who have changed our world so much.

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

Nancy Miller: We were pretty normal Manhattan Beach family. My kids grew up in Manhattan Beach, California. And most of our family activities were all centered around going to the beach. Jimmy fell in love with surfing when he was seven. He knew from that age on that that’s where he wanted to be in that in that water space. That’s how he lived his life. So by the time he was 10, he was surfing in contests. After high school,  before he went to Cal, he passed the Los Angeles County lifeguard test. So he became in Los Angeles lifeguard which was ultimately a life changing occupation for him. Jimmy was a scholar athlete. He got into Berkeley and started the first surf club it Cal ever had. 

After he graduated, he started his company called Pure Surfing Experience. When he started it he wanted to bring surfing to everyone. He was running this company and he met and married a young model.  Unfortunately, they separated after a few years. At this time, Jimmy had grown his company, traveled all over the world, teaching lessons, and he was writing newspaper articles. He tore his labrum in his shoulder and was going through this very difficult separation. And he had been the joy of everyone’s life and a golden light in the world, all of a sudden, he became very anxious and concerned.

There  wasn’t any prior evidence of any mental illness in our family.  With this injury, he couldn’t go in the water. When he wasn’t able to go in the water, it totally changed his body chemistry and his brain chemistry. Wow, it threw him into a real tailspin. In May of 2004, he had a psychotic break. 

On August 7, 2004, he took his life and changed all of our lives. He changed the lives of everyone who loved him, the surf community and the lifeguard community. The community of Manhattan Beach all came together, along with friends all over the world, in disbelief that Jimmy had had this undiagnosed mental illness.  Within six months of Jimmy’s death we began to plan a way to use surfing to provide self efficacy. A combination of a guided surfing adaptive surfing and talking about it or talk therapy.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Nancy Miller: For us, the challenges became finding enough volunteers.  Those first five or six years, we really didn’t not have that problem.  Being a being able to make sure there  was an occupational therapist in part of the program.  It’s not just about surfing, it’s about that talk therapy. It’s about having a therapist on on site at every single session. As we grew, and the numbers changed it was a matter of working overtime to find the qualified people to actually give the surf lessons.

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

Nancy Miller: We’ve had four major studies about surfing and depression published in journals. We have served 5000 at risk children and over 150 Marines and veterans with PTSD. There are about 120 surf therapy organizations worldwide who all use our technique and process. So what our impact is right now is unbelievable. What started as a family foundation is now worldwide. When people talk about Ocean Therapy, surf therapy, the Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation is where everyone got the basics.

We have now added Health Care Workers from the front lines of Covid who suffer from PTSD, depressions and suicidal ideation.  Two hospitals are participating and their staffs have experienced significant anxiety reduction by surfing with JMMF. Our newest group is young adults with Special Needs from the Friendship Foundation.  Their ages ranged from 18-35, and included non-verbals, on the spectrum, Downs Syndrome and more.  Everyone surfed, rode a board on their tummy’s or standing up, and were able to share their experiences with exuberance and joy.

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

Nancy Miller: I think as I said, it takes a village. You cannot do something alone. It takes all it takes all of those inner people that are intertwined. And you need to be able to reach out and ask for help. It doesn’t just happen to you. Have faith in the process and being able to surround yourself with people who understand.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Nancy Miller: I really have. As I mentioned before, for the first five years, it was just too painful to talk about Jimmy.  For me, it wasn’t how he died but how he lived. The big difference now is that I can talk about how he lived and what a difference his life made. So I think in terms of my biggest change is that I couldn’t have had this conversation with you. I just couldn’t have, it wouldn’t have worked. Now, I’m so happy to share his stories. And if I shed some tears while I’m talking, it is just part of the story. It is part of my mother’s story and this is a family story.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

To learn more about The Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation view their video Here
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