I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how theyll make the mortgage, or pay their doctors bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who wont agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government cant solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand….

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, its that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

~ Barack Obama, Victory Speech November 4, 2008

Full text and videos at Huffington Post

Yesterday “The Oprah Winfrey Show” presented the O Ambassadors program, a joint project of Oprah’s Angel Network and Free The Children. It aims to connect young people in North America with people around the world to create lasting change. This school based program provides a curriculum for local educators who lead their student club in activities that raise funds for development projects and increase awareness of global issues.

• Clubs will run for the duration of the 2008/2009 school year
• Clubs will explore four UN Millennium Development Goals themes: poverty, education, health and sustainable development
• Specific fundraising and awareness activities will be assigned to clubs to adapt for their school audience.
• Clubs will receive instructional resources and programming support for each of these activities.

I heard about this on Friday and looked up the websites, but then yesterday I totally forgot to watch or Tivo the broadcast. There are clips from the show, summaries and photos now online. Free the Children’s Craig Kielburger was on the show. I heard him speak at the AFP national conference last year and couldn’t help but be impressed with his drive and inspirational outlook on life.

When Craig Kielburger first appeared on The Oprah Show in 1999, he was a 16-year-old social activist on a mission to show young people they have the power to change the world. Since that day, Oprah’s Angel Network has teamed up with Craig’s organization, Free The Children, and built almost 60 schools in underdeveloped countries around the world.

Now, with the help of an audience filled with more than 300 students, Oprah is announcing an even more ambitious project. “I’m proud to unveil one of the best ideas we’ve ever had—it’s called O Ambassadors,” Oprah says. “[Our ambition is] to give young people a direct, hands-on way to transform the lives of children who are half a world away.”

“We’ve set up groups in schools across North America. They apply and receive a curriculum about different issues facing the world—from environment to health to sustainability. Then, the students take actions from fundraisers to awareness raisers, and some of them even go overseas and volunteer,” Craig says. “We’re launching a challenge to a generation of kids to change the world.”

Joan Garry summed up the basic premise of the show and its drawbacks in How Could You Not Like Oprah’s Big Give? Here’s How on Huffington Post:

The basic idea behind this show is more than admirable. It’s quite spectacular, actually. A group of people are given the opportunity to touch the lives of people in real need. They are given resources, tools and time to figure out a way to be as generous as possible with a person or family each week. This is not just a gift to the one in need. It is a gift to the contestant, to meet and understand the depth of need and to feel the real and palpable emotions that come with giving. The audience, by extension, reaps that benefit as well.

It is when you put all of this into the context of a competition that the concept goes horribly awry. The person who is the nicest, who raises more money than the other contestants wins.

But before I go any further, I’ll confess that I did not watch the show…no, not one episode. I enjoy other reality shows including similar “feel good” shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition. However it was the competitive nature and hype of the Big Give that initially turned me off from the show. Plus there were too many other saved shows on my DVR and on YouTube that were more appealing.

Anyway, there were quite a few people in the non profit world who did like the show… including Marc Pitman who wrote several reviews of The Big Give episodes. More recently Britt on Have Fun Do Good responded to some of the criticisms with Why I Liked Oprah’s Big Give.

One thing is for certain, the show had a big impact on the many individuals and communities that benefited from the projects. Final winner Stephen Paletta assisted several great charities during the show and is now committed to philanthropy full-time. On a smaller scale there are cities that are still feeling the positive affects, such as an Orlando police organization who used seed money from the show for community service projects.

And of course while The Big Give was just the most recent incarnation of Oprah’s guiding vision for helping others. The Angel Network, foundation and other projects have been doing great work for years… and will likely continue to do so for years to come.

First off I will say I am by no means a math wiz and math was probably my least favorite subject! But somehow he was able to explain the ides to me in a way that I could understand. If the class didn’t quite get how to work a math problem he kept answering our questions, rephrasing things and doing “just one more problem” until we did get it. He never wanted to leave anyone behind.

When I got to college I realized just how lucky I had been to have Mr. Bennett as a math teacher. Even with a study partner and trying my best I had to drop college algebra since I was squeaking by with a low C. The next semester my new teacher seemed to have a similar knack as Mr. Bennett and I actually got an A. Though I was thankful that as an art major that was the only required math course!

Of course it wasn’t his skill with numbers that impressed me the most. It was his character and personality. He infused his trademark humor into class and his hilarious presentations on awards day were legendary.  He simply exuded an optimistic view of life.

When not in the classroom Norman Bennett spent his free time in front of a camera or on stage. He performed in local theatre but has had many small speaking roles in major films. In a recent interview for a Sherman TV Station he admits that he tends to be typecast (basically playing himself) but he doesn’t seem to mind.

When I heard he’d retired a couple of years after I graduated I knew he wasn’t likely to sit still too long. One day my mother-in-law phoned us up and said to turn on the TV, Mr. Bennett was on Wheel of Fortune! Not too long ago we rented the film Infamous and there he was again.  Even after all this time, Mr. Bennett is still teaching by example — you’re never too young, too old, too anything to enjoy life as the blessed adventure it can be.

People living in a village near the airport in Jakarta (Indonesia) gather recyclable items and exchange them for money. Everyday they search for things that they can turn in such as plastic bags, bottles, cans, metal, and wire. In the past they had to walk and carry the items to the brokers. Most people were able to collect enough recyclable material to earn about $1 per day.

With help from the community committees in the area volunteers obtained 100 bikes and fitted them with large baskets. They distributed the bikes to the families in the village. Now with the bikes and baskets they can take more recyclables and they can do so much faster.

Marc said that with these bikes their “income goes from about $1 per day to about $3 per day and that is really significant for them.”

It is hard to imagine even living on $3 per day when thinking of it in US value. However to put this in perspective in Indonesia the average yearly income is $3843 US (2005).

This year 100 Friends has worked on many other great projects. In Cambodia they distributed hundreds of mosquito nets that could protect up to 1000 people from malaria and dengue fever. They support orphanages in several countries and are even building a school in Afghanistan. The 100 Friends Project 2007 Field Report describes the other activities from the past year. Whether it’s bikes, medical supplies or just a dollar or two to a family in need, 100 Friends continues to do good all across the globe.

Now Marc does this full time and has quite a few people on board as volunteers. This year he’s spent a lot of time in Indonesia.  Here’s a bit from a recent report that Marc sent to his newsletter list:

I went back Bandeh Aceh for a week to help tsunami survivors and the other I donated $2,000 for earthquake victims to get back to work with micro-loans. This will result in dozens of people gaining employment. Also set up an emergency fund for the village and support for numerous of the most needy families.

Plans for the rest of this year and beyond include:

• Raising $20,000 to build an 8 room school house for 1000 children in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan; currently the children go to school in tents; the village will provide the land and the labor needed to build the school
• $3,000 to improve a school in Cambodia in the village of Ta Tork 18 km. from Siam Reap
• raising funds to help orphans in Ulan Bator, Mongolia
• scholarships for village children in Borneo, Malaysia
• continuing support of many children rescued from life in the garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to live at the Centre for Children’s Happiness
• working through War Child to help Iraqi children suffering from the effects of war in Baghdad and Karbala
• raising funds for children with cancer and AIDS in Thailand
• raising funds for operations and scholarships for children in Viet Nam
• plans starting for a mission in 2008 to Niger and Malawi in Africa, two of the poorest countries in the world

100 Friends has been featured in several national media reports this year.  Here are two of them:

Voice of America (article & audio), April 2007

San Francisco Cronicle, November 2006

On the Move book 

God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There’s is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.

Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.

And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.

~ Bono, speech at the National Prayer Breakfast February 2006

One of the amazing people that I met was Janet Ginn. She is the President of Heifer Foundation, the endowment and planned giving arm of Heifer International.

While many companies were at the exhibit all — it took all day to visit all the booths — Janet was there simply to publicize Heifer and give away copies of her book Circle of Giving: Donors’ Stories of Wisdom. Actually, when someone asked why they were exhibiting, she said, “I’m just here to encourage you, to know that we’re all in this together.”

More Photos from AFP