Nepal Is Where My Heart Is

As many know, I am in love with Nepal.  Even though I have never been and may never get to go- I know that's where my heart is.  I've read many accounts of the people and situation there and it is very hard to understand.  Nepal is one of the poorest and most beautiful countries in the world but they seem to have been forgotten.  I wanted to share the truth of the slum people and their lives.  The below photos are randoms from the hundreds I have seen.  I didn't pick the worst to make more of an impact- these are the average.



The slum people-  Every first hand account I have heard from those who've traveled here describe these people the same way- polite and generous, even though they have absolutely nothing- appreciative of life and able to smile through things most of us couldn't even live through- hardworking family oriented people with zero opportunities to change their situations.  There are around 2.8 million Nepali people living in slums.

MEET THE CHILDREN



 

THEIR HOMES

 

THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD

 

THEIR SOURCE OF FOOD AND INCOME

 

THEIR WATER SUPPLY

 

 

Yes, these pictures are shocking!  But I think these next two are the most thought provoking. 

MEET THE NEIGHBORS

 





 



(This one is the slums of Brazil)

 

How the people on the right can enjoy those fancy pools or a nice game of tennis while looking down on poverty is beyond me.  Imagine yourself in the top picture- First in the high-rises (which is where we are in life) then in the slums.  I think these pictures speak 1,000 words.  It's how we treat each other- How we abandon each other- How we choose to spend our money and what our priorities are in life.  I think one day everyone on Earth will deal with an apocalypse or disaster that will put everyone on an even playing field.  We better hope people treat us better than we have treated others. If you're reading this humanitarian blog, you are clearly not someone who would let your neighbors suffer through life and I wish everyone were like you.  With the holidays coming up please keep in mind what is important in life and keep an open eye for the opportunities that are all around us to be a blessing in someone's life.   







I met a man today who, within 10 seconds of speaking to him, amazed me and broke my heart.  I'm not sure if the term mentally retarded is still politically correct so I apologize if it's not.  He reminded me of the huge lovable guy from the Green Mile both in appearance and soul- the only difference was the severity of his disability was much worse.  When he spoke to me I was immediately blown away by how sweet this guy was.  I instantly started to cry but was able to stop myself before the tears came.  I'm ashamed to say it but I actually had to cut the conversation short with him and stop looking him in the eye because I knew if it continued I would lose it.  The things he said were simple things like complimenting me on my Halloween costume, telling me he hoped I had a great night.. etc.  But there was so much beautiful energy exuding from him that it was overwhelming.  It got me thinking about a couple of things.  First, how hard it is sometimes to not question God about his methods and the reasons why things are the way they are.  I'm intelligent enough to know that he has a reason for everything but not enlightened enough to understand them.  I'm also human enough not to be able to accept them.  How can someone who deserved nothing but beautiful things in life be standing in front of me with the hand this guy was dealt?  When I was a kid I saw Paula Abdul on the Arseno Hall Show and he was asking her about her success and what she attributes it to- or something along those lines.  Her answer was that bad things don't happen to good people.  This was right after my mom passed away so, as you can imagine, I wanted to climb through the t.v. and punch her in the mouth.  I still do.  I always say bad things happen to good people because only good people would use those experiences to help others.  I partly believe that.  The other thing I thought about was how ironic it is that people who have such tragic lives have such amazing souls.  When I say tragic life I mean dealing with starvation, dehydration, disease, severe mental illness, slavery, etc.  How can someone who has absolutely nothing in life have such positive attitudes, big hearts and genuineness while those who have everything they've ever needed seem to be ungrateful, selfish and jaded. I guess I'll never know and I'm ok with that as long as I get to keep coming across people in my life like the man I met today.  It's never really crossed my mind to volunteer with the handicapped but now it's definitely on my list.

**Sometimes when I look back on stuff like this I wonder what in the world is wrong with me!?! Ha!  Over emotional is putting it politely.  It's a blessing and a curse because on one hand I realize that it is not natural to feel that much instant sadness from something that happened to someone I don't even know. But on the other hand I appreciate it because I know how much fuel that is for me to try to right the wrongs.  Basically I just want you all to know that I do realize I'm crazy and over the top but I'm ok with that. ;)

Day of the Girl

Today is the international Day of the Girl.  It means a lot to me that a day has been given to them because I know of all of the horrible things that some of them have to deal with in other countries.  I think men in these countries fear how powerful women can be when given the opportunity and that's sad.  When I think about the three most powerful people in my life they are all women.  I was blessed with a sister and an aunt who always spoke their mind and taught me that it's ok to be me... say what I want to say, do what I want to do and always be what I am- and never what I'm not.  The third was my first real boss who taught me to put my big boy pants on when it comes to life... be honest with what I say and be confident enough to accept it from others.  Looking at how those three shaped my truly happy life it's hard to imagine what things would've been like if they were oppressed and unable to teach me so much.  The world will only stand for so much bigotry and stupidity from the weak minded and this day is proof of that!

Speedy Rewards - Turning freebies into food

I'm a regular customer of Speedway gas stations and this month I've decided to use that to my humanitarian advantage.  I will go out of my way to hit up a Speedway, sometimes passing 20 other stations, and end up there almost every day.  Because of that I am frequently collecting freebies and other rewards.  This month I will be donating the equivalent of the freebies I collect to Feed My Starving Children (www.fmsc.org).  I have no set goal but every three or four days I earn a free coffee ($1.49) which equals almost seven meals... So by the end of the month that should add up to a pretty decent haul.  This is only the 7th day of this mission and already two out of the ordinary things have happened to help me along.  I'm not saying there's some divine intervention but you let me know what you think after reading what's next.  On the second day I was in line behind a guy buying coffee.  When he started to walk away the cashier told him to come back because he had a free drink ticket.  He pointed at me and said "Give it to that guy."  Ching, ching - 7 meals.  On Saturday, day 5, I was at another location.  After I checked out, the guy behind me asked to see my rewards card.  He then had them scan it while ringing up his $40 worth of stuff.  He handed the card back to me and then said "Thank you."  Speedy cards do not discount your items the same way a Kroger card would, so he was just doing this so I could collect the points.  I thought about how amazing it was that these two guys, who clearly had no idea what I'm doing, just so happened to make a nice gesture to me and by doing so unknowingly just put food in the mouths of starving kids around the world.  Amazing.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the coat drive this week!!  We far exceeded my expectations and collected 44 coats!  The majority of the women's coats go to Doma International which helps victims of sex trafficking here in Ohio.  The other women's coats as well as the men's and children's go to World Relief Columbus which helps refugees who are resettled here.  It's hard to believe that sex trafficking is a problem in Ohio and equally hard to believe that some of the people we share our cities with are refugees who have suffered horrific things and have been placed here -with us, to be able to live a better life.  To us a coat is not the end of the world but for them it can be the beginning of a tolerable one.  I think it means more than we will ever know... When everyone has treated you more like garbage than a human being you need people to step in and say, you mean something to me and I care about you.    You guys said that.  You guys rock!!

Each year anywhere from 40 to 75 thousand refugees are resettled in the U.S.A.
It is estimated that at least 17,500 victims of human trafficking also arrive in America each year and remain held against their will. 

SEPTEMBER - It's turning out to be a pretty busy month for me, which I love.  No rest for the wicked.  On the 27th I get to return to Chicago for more work with FMSC!  I can't wait!  I didn't think I'd be able to make it back so soon but really the expense of going there is much less than you would think.  I have a coat drive coming up this Saturday to benefit victims of sex trafficking who are located in central Ohio as well as refugees who are placed here.  Both of these issues are important to me, I think because I had no understanding of them until the past few years and was shocked by the enormity of their presence in the world.  I plan to blog about them more in the next week or two.  I've also started making jewelry that I am selling to benefit Feed My Starving Children.  The things I'm making sell for pretty cheap but each item provides 15 meals, which I'm pretty excited about.  If anyone has suggestions or ideas on what I should make next please comment and let me know!! Below are a few of the items listed so far.  If you want to check out the shop it's https://www.etsy.com/shop/Slumdreams

On Saturday, Sept. 14th I'll be at JD Legends in Franklin from 1:30pm to 3pm collecting gently used coats and scarves.  These will be donated to victims of human trafficking and refugees.  I'm looking for men's, women's (especially women's) and kids coats and scarves of all sizes- must be in good condition.  Hopefully all of you have some old ones lying around that you don't care to part with for a good cause.  Ladies, this gives you an excuse to go out and buy yourself something new ;) Stop by and have a beer and hang out or if you're in a rush I will run out and grab them from you.  When I get there on Saturday I will post on FB where exactly I am.  Knowing me I will be as close as I can get to the bar/pool tables and as far as I can get from the bowling lanes.  Thanks!! 

Functional Fashion - One of my favorite ways to show support for a cause or charity is to shop the marketplace stores on their sites.  Because I, like everyone else, like to blow money on myself sometimes.  Fine, a lot of times.  Most organizations have caught on to the amount of free advertising and funds that are brought in by selling merchandise and have started boutique style web-shops.  You would be surprised how well they keep up with trends and how cool the stuff is.  I've compiled my favorites below.  In most cases the items are either fair trade or a portion of the proceeds, if not all, go directly to the charities.  These are great ice breakers when you are wanting to spread public awareness and get a conversation started.  I once bombarded a bachelorette party at a bar and hounded them about doing volunteer work for a specific charity for 20 minutes... I'm sure they would have preferred me to just wear a t-shirt. 

New fundraising venture!  I'm going to be making these globe bead bracelets soon.  The black beads are lava stone with a hand painted abstract globe.  When you're as bad at art as I am you have to use the word abstract in everything you create ;)  I'm not sure where or how I will be selling them or even which nonprofit the money will go to.  I'm thinking UNICEF or a clean water project. 

5 TIPS & TRICKS -MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR DONATIONS
Put your money where your heart is.

When it comes to donating your money and your time it's not uncommon to sometimes wonder where the money is going.  Is it being used for what they say/what you intended it for?  Are you being deceived or taken for a ride?  Educating yourself as a donor will increase the impact your contribution is making.

1- www.charitynavigator.org This site has been a godsend for me.  This is a nonprofit charity rating site which rates on a 4 star system based on financials and accountability & transparency.  What does that mean to you?  It means you can see how much the charity brings in, program expenses (the amount going directly to the cause), how much they spend on fundraising and how much return is generated by that fundraising.  Basically, whether or not they are doing a good job appropriating the donations.  You can also see the salary of their CEO and President, which will sometimes turn your stomach. While they do have 1.6 million nonprofits rated, not all that you search for will be listed.  This absence does not bear on the validity of what your researching but typically means they are not large enough to make it on this radar.  I could rave about this site for days, it truly is my humanitarian encyclopedia.   

2- Monthly donations vs. one time or annually.  Both have the pros and cons but if you have a particular cause you give to regularly you need to factor in what works best for them.  Typically the charity will get the most from your dollar with a one time or annual gift.  Monthly donations are great but you have to factor in the man hours caused by more paperwork and any fees incurred by them through their process of collecting funds.  I recommend monthly donations if you aren't great with your money and are worried that you won't put it back for the annual gift.  Most sites will prompt you to become a monthly and/or annual donor because this secures future donations and gives them projections of their future income. 

3- Get to know the organization's staff, when possible.  If you are in a position to get hands on with your chosen charity I highly recommend it.  You will learn things you never knew about not only their inner-workings but, equally important, the motivation of the staff they employee.  Are they motivated by the cause or are they there because it was a job?  There's some things you just can't learn on the internet or at fundraising events.  I once went to a volunteer orientation for an animal rescue.  I was pretty excited to be there and be involved until I started looking around the room.  Laptops  and over-the-top technology everywhere -obvious needless expenses stuck out left and right.  I then met the guy running the place and he seemed to be a total sleazeball.  I could have wasted money on this place for years.

4- Use the proper channels!  This is the number one mistake I see donors making day in and day out.  Do you know the guys on the street corners with signs that say something like "homeless - please help"?  Of course you do.  In my opinion there are many times when that sign should read "addict - please enable".  Sounds harsh but the reality is that many of those people are not actually homeless.  Begging and deceiving is their job.  If your cause is local hunger, and you want your money to feed genuinely homeless people, I recommend giving directly to the local soup kitchen or YMCA etc.  These are the types of places that the legitimately homeless go for a meal and other resources.  Some of the larger well-known nonprofits have also began using telemarketers to solicit donations for them.  What you're not told on the call is that a large portion of the money you donate is actually going to pay the fees charged by the telemarketing company.  I always recommend giving directly to a charity rather than using a third party.

5- Don't be afraid to move on.  Choosing to stop supporting a charity is not a break-up from your cause.  You are actually doing your cause a disservice by choosing to funnel money into something that you do not feel is benefiting them in the way that you want it to.  Follow the blogs, social networking pages and websites of those you support and you will get a birds eye view of the work they are doing and what your money is supporting.  This is especially important for international causes because you are less likely to be able to do the hands on approach mentioned above. 

I'm interested in any comments, questions and tips you have to add to this list!!    

FMSC UPDATE

I got to do my volunteer work at FMSC this past Friday and the experience far exceeded my expectations!  You never know what to expect when you walk into a new situation with a random group of people.  Truly I find a lot of volunteer work to be a little bland but this was definitely not the case here.  When I arrived at the Aurora location of Feed My Starving Children I immediately saw a large group of teenage girls standing out front.  Their shirts read Batavia Dance.  It only took me a few minutes to realize that this group was going to be a blast to work with, and boy was I right.  We started by watching a video showing where the food goes and who it feeds, featuring school aged African kids and their caretakers.  We then went to the meal packing (Manna) room and saw different assembly line-like tables set up.  We all lined up along the walls while an enthusiastic volunteer leader showed us what each of us would do.  Each table had 16 positions, each with their own duty.  Mine was to weigh each Manna pack and make sure the weight was between 380 to 400 grams.  Sounds boring right, doing that for two hours?  Wrong.  This is where the Batavia Dance girls came in handy.  Once we started packing, a little boom box was cranked up playing music by Justin Beiber, Miley Cyrus, Nelly.. etc.  The girls sang each song at the top of their lungs and since there were around 50 of them it sounded like a choir right behind me.  The cumulative feel of their excitement, the thought of what we were doing there and the task of weighing each bag and being a part of a assembly line made the time fly by.  Not only was it not boring but it was actually a blast. 

We had 74 people on our team.  All together we created 109 boxes of Manna packs.
Each box held around 214 meals so in total, during our two hours, we created 23,328 meals.  It's easy to get the overwhelming feeling of "how can one person possibly change the world" but when you look at numbers like this and realize that it only took that little amount of time and people to create such a huge amount of meals, it gives you hope and opens your eyes up to the fact that you are.  Even though I got to check this line on my bucket list it really didn't make it any shorter because I immediately put it right back on.  So even though I was here already, it won't be long before I come back.

 

Feed My Starving Children- www.fmsc.org

It's been on my bucket list for a while now so I can't explain how excited I am that I have the opportunity to go to Chicago this week to volunteer for FMSC!!  FMSC is a world hunger initiative based in Coon Rapids, MN with volunteer sites also in Chicago (3) and Arizona (1).  Their mission is to feed malnourished children from nearly 70 countries.  Volunteers gather at a pack site and create Manna packs which are meals composed of nutrients, vegetables, soy and rice.  The manna packs are then shipped all around the world to those most in need.  With an estimated 870 million starving people in the world, 1 in 7 people going to bed hungry each night, you can imagine the impact that an organization like FMSC, who produces roughly 160 million meals each year, can have.  Not only is this a 4 star rated charity with top-notch proficiency, financially and operationally, but the beauty is that each meal is produced for only 22 cents.  When I discovered this I was pretty shocked that the difference between someone's life and death was only 22 cents!  Even more shocking to me was that millions of people die each year over such a solvable issue, yet no one talks about it.  The day I learned of FMSC was the day I started looking at discarded pennies laying on the ground with disgust.  How could someone throw down this 9 cents?  Or why were they too lazy or embarrassed to pick it up if they accidentally dropped it?  Do they not know that all they need is 13 more cents to save someone's life?  How could they not care??  I realize now that the problem with most Americans is not that they don't care, it's that they are ignorant to the world's issues and this information is not readily available to them or something our media chooses to focus on.  For once I would like to turn on the world news to see a story about this rather than a murder trial or politicians arguing.  Fat chance.  I think if more people knew, if more people knew what actions to take, if more people knew what impact their disposable change and time could have, most would want to do something about it.  For myself, the feeling I will have this week when I'm physically holding and creating meals that will travel the world and end up in the hands and stomachs of starving kids is going to be amazing and I am blessed to be able to feel it!!  I'm thankful to FMSC for helping me let those little guys and girls know that I was here. 

To get involved visit fmsc.org  There you will find a link for donations, the marketplace which allows you to buy artisan goods with profits going to create more meals, and pack sites for those interested in volunteering.  They also have mobile packs for those who are unable to travel to the above mentioned states.  Mobile packs take place in nearly every state. 

Where do I start??  It's a little nerve wrecking to write this first blog.  Is my grammar up to par?  Will my thoughts come out clearly?  I guess since I have no followers I should just wipe those questions from my mind and give it a shot.

I'll start with how I wound up where I am and who I am.  Up until a few years ago all I really knew of the world was that "there are starving people in Africa".  This I found out by trying not to finish my food when I was a kid and being guilted into submission.  My thoughts then were the same as they are now, "then why don't people give them food?"  I've always been a courteous well-mannered guy and I did what I could to help those around me and that was enough for me until one bad day came along.  I was in the drive through at a fast food restaurant placing my order.  When I was done the cashier said "Would you like to donate a dollar to.." typically I would say yes no matter what it was but this time, on this bad day, I said "no" before she could even finish the sentence.  I immediately felt bad for cutting her off and saying that and this was compounded when I pulled up to the window and saw a sticker for the St. Jude foundation for children with cancer.  As you can imagine, I felt like a huge piece of shit.  I started thinking about what I would do with that dollar verses what the family of a sick child would do with it.  The difference was life or death for them and inconsequential for me.  I think this was the moment that got the humanitarian wheels spinning in my head.  But the more I researched the tragedies of the world the more helpless I felt to change them.  They were monumental and I was an ant.  Where do I get the money to help stop sex trafficking in Nepal?  Where do I find the time to do volunteer work when I'm needed?  How will it ever be convenient for me to travel abroad and make a difference?  Most challenging- How will I handle all of the things I now know and how will I live with the sadness that knowledge brings with it?  The truth is there will never be a convenient time and I will never be able to shed the sadness.  I have since realized, thanks to an Angel, that I cannot let those questions stand in my way or make excuses to do what is easy.  There is always a way.  Power, freedom and human rights are only able to be granted by those who have them.  When people exist who do not have these it is not their fault it is ours. I would rather carry the weight of the world on my shoulders than the shame of turning a blind eye to it or letting it exist as it is.  I will make sure that it is known that I was here for them.