is involved in something really cool related to Three Cups of Tea and Mortenson's cause. Jill works for the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech that was formed out of the tragedy that happened there April 16th, 2007. The Center's student affiliate organization, Students for Non-Violence, is bringing Greg Mortenson, author of the book, to campus on April 15th. (I am so jealous and wish I could be there!) As a part of that they are organizing a "Pennies for Peace" drive on campus as well. Their goal is that the VT community can raise enough funds to build a school in Pakistan/Afghanistan and maintain it for 5 years at a donation of only $1.77 per student on campus. How cool! Some of us at FFA are getting busy collecting pennies for Jill as well. If you're interested in learning more about the cause or how you can help with the Pennies for Peace campaign at VT (or just have some spare change!), please let me know!
Good luck, Jill! You are involved in a really cool cause!
In other news, this weekend I'm heading out of town for a couple of weeks. Stops include Chico & Fresno, CA, Gainesville & Clearwater, FL. I'm hoping to have some fabulous stories and pictures to share from my adventures! And... if you're in one of those towns I'm so excited to see you soon!
The Bracelet Campaign is just one of the cool things that Invisible Children is doing to change people's lives around the world. A quick run-down on Invisible Children:
Three young college filmmakers, Jason, Bobby and Laren traveled to Africa in the spring of 2003 in search of a story. When they witnessed how the unseen war in Northern Uganada was affecting the children there they were both "disgusted and inspired". They told their stories in Invisible Children: Rough Cut, a documentary about their experieneces in Uganda. The complete story, The Final Cut, is coming to theatres soon. Keep your eyes out for it!
Becuase of these experiences, Jason, Bobby and Laren went beyond the film and founded Invisble Children, a nonprofit working to transform apathy into activism. They have many campaigns in addition to the bracelet campagin mentioned above, and I could never do this organization justice in a blog post. So... check out the website - http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php - it's really powerful, really cool, and really inspiring. Also... here's a link to one of my favorite Invisbile Children videos... it's short - and the message applies to so much more than just this singular cause... please take a minute to watch it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JUwYkiKWlI
PS - thanks for the bracelet Marcus! :)
My (healthy) obsession with TOMS began last year when my friend forwarded me a job post... She said it was with a really cool company that made her think about me. Well, I wasn't looking for a new job, but it sounded interesting, so I checked out their website.
I was surprised and inspired by the story I found there.
In a nutshell, this guy Blake
went to Argentina on vacation in 2006. While he was there he was stricken by the poverty he saw, especially among children. Many children couldn't afford shoes to wear, and as a result were contracting some pretty nasty diseases through their feet. (Let that sink if for a moment. NO SHOES. And because of that, they were getting sick. Can you even imagine? The reality of that situation is so hard for me to grasp when i have a closet full of shoes I only wear with certain outfits.) Anyway...
That could've easily been the end of the story, but it's not.
Blake designed a simple canvas shoe based on the traditional Argentine alpargata. 
That May Blake started selling the shoes from his apartment with a simple philosophy: for every shoe he sold he'd give one to a child in need. By October of that year he'd sold over 10,000 pairs and in turn delivered 10,000 pairs to Argentina in what TOMS calls a shoe drop.
Since then TOMS has given away over 130,000 pairs of shoes and plans to give over 300,000 more this year.
After learning more about TOMS I was sold. I purchased a pair for myself and for every staff member of the Washington Leadership Conference last year. Because the conference was about service, I figured TOMS were the perfect shoes for us to sport all summer. We got white shoes, had a party, and painted them... TOMS calls it "Style Your Sole." http://styleyoursole.tomsshoes.com/ (We each painted ours to represent an area of service we were committed to).
We had a ton of fun and all ended up with a very unique pair of shoes!
Me painting my shoes:
And they don't just sell shoes. They have some pretty sweet other merchandise, like my most recent purchase:
It combines my favorite shoes with my favorite quote! And the "one for one" applies to anything you buy from TOMS - so you buy a t-shirt, hat, etc... a kid gets a pair of shoes!
So all that is really cool, but there's even more reason to love him. Many of Dave's song lyrics hint at something bigger than himself. Hearing him singing about changing your own actions because of others in need (10,000 children) and changing the world (Brothers & Sisters), I assumed that on some level Dave Barnes 1) is living for something more, and 2) has a heart for service. Seeing him in concert for the first time, I realized that both of those assumptions are true - and probably to a bigger degree than I'd realized. In the middle of his set, Dave slowed things way down and took about 15 minutes to talk about his experiences serving in Africa (he's been 4 times) and working with Mocha Club. Mocha Club is an organization working to tie together two communities - ours and Africa - by encouraging people to give as little as $7 a month... roughly the cost of two mochas. In fact, I'm sitting at Starbucks right now and the board lists a grande mocha at $3.65... so two of those is less than a monthly membership to Mocha Club.
A musician rocking out and then all of a sudden stopping and using a chunk of his show to talk about serving and giving? And... seven dollars? To help create change? Seriously? Yeah. Here's what $7 can do:
You know, I often struggle with doing "small things" to help. It never feels like enough... and sometimes because it's so small it makes it feel like it doesn't really matter (verbalizing that makes me feel wretched). But I looked at the numbers above. And I looked at the faces in the pictures and videos on the Mocha Club website and have done my best to make them real to me and not just images.
And I try to put myself in their place (which is SO hard in our life of excess and riches.) And I realized - if I got to drink clean water for a year, or I got a quick shot that saved me from dying from Malaria - I would fiercely believe that $7 is enough to make a difference.
So I signed up. Marshall and I created a team - Orange and Blue (I know... real creative) and because of that, we each got a free Dave Barnes CD. Come to find out, Dave Barnes (as well as other musicians like Matt Wertz) has been giving away free CD's all year... for signing up to join Mocha club, for recruiting more people to join, etc. I wonder how many CD's Dave Barnes has given away in the last year that he could have profited from, but chose not to.
He's parting with serious revenue. I'm parting with a couple of cups of coffee. Coffee that I really enjoy... but still just coffee. You know, maybe it's not coffee for you. Maybe you hate coffee. If that's the case, what's your "mocha"? What do you spend $7 a month on that is nice but you could easily part with and not really miss or maybe even not notice it's gone? McDonald's? People magazine? A movie? I know that we hear these pitches all the time for hundreds of different charities. Quit ignoring them. Pick one - whether it's Mocha Club or not - and give something that you don't really need anyway. Now.
If you want to join Mocha Club, or just learn more about what they're doing in Africa, check it out at http://www.mochaclub.org/. You can join my team! (However... because I signed up on paper at the concert my team info isn't live on the website yet, so hang tight :))
And... be sure to check out Dave Barnes on his website or iTunes - a really cool musician doing cool things for the world.
"10,000 children are my invitation to change. To continue in excess suddenly feels oh so strange." - Dave Barnes, 10,000 Children
