For those who don’t remember or haven’t been paying attention, I’m participating in my third National Novel Writing Month right now. That’s when I consume massive amounts of chocolate and caffeine and write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. After 20 days I’m over 34,000 words. That means I’m ahead of schedule, but not by much.
You can read along if you like, though I promise it’s full of typos, bad ideas, moralizing and inconsistencies (hey, it’s an unedited first draft).
Last week I yo-yoed and clothed a homeless teen.
Here’s how it works: Virgin Mobile set up Blank2Clothe.com where anyone can submit a video*. They approve the video and donate one article of clothing to one of the millions of homeless youth in America. That’s it.
But it gets better. Each time a video is watched five times, they’ll donate another article of clothing. So far 11 articles of clothing have been donated from my video and the site claims more than 100,000 donations so far.
So let’s care for some homeless youth:
A friend of mine and his family spent six months in Guatemala finalizing the adoption of their second child. That experience inspired them both artistically and practically:
“It is a land of great beauty, but marred by devastating poverty and instability. Guatemala impacted us spiritually as well as aesthetically. We saw poverty and injustice unmasked. The reality of poverty—that some people cannot provide for their families no matter how hard they work—was overwhelming.”
In response, my friend’s wife Jenni created a series of 10 paintings depicting the life and people of Guatemala. They also got involved in Paso a Paso, a nonprofit organization that’s trying to build a sustainable community in a small neighborhood. They’re focusing on education, clean water, safe stoves and job training.
Most families in this community cook with open fires in their home, and as a result the World Health Organization reports that the leading cause of death for children under 5 in Guatemala is falling into these fires. That’s astounding. Paso a Paso is working to replace in-home cooking fires with enclosed wood-burning stoves made from insulated steel drums. You can buy a stove for $130.
In addition to donations, Paso a Paso also sells a few items made locally, including blankets, purses and stationary. Jenni just got back from a trip to Guatemala to work in the community and connect with the people.
Consider supporting Paso a Paso, purchasing some of their locally made products, or buying one of Jenni’s paintings (contact her through JenniWhite.com).
On Tuesday I picked a fight with marketing guru Guy Kawasaki on Twitter. I called him out on what I considered to be a questionable marketing practice and he engaged in a little debate. I blogged about it in order to fully explain my position and Kawasaki linked to it, drawing even more attention.
In the end my traffic increased six-fold. For one day. You can see the lovely bump in the graph above. I’m sure there might be some residual folks—so thanks for sticking around. On Twitter I saw more than 100 followers in 24 hours (and they haven’t un-followed … yet). Wow. Kind of a wild ride. Not what I expected (or intended) from trying to point out a flawed idea. And thanks to the many, many people who agreed with me. The marketing guru isn’t always right (though he’d claim otherwise).
And for the record, I saw no corresponding increase in my Google Adsense earnings. The crap ads on the Kawasaki post didn’t help. Starting to rethink Adsense.
Mark is unemployed, his home is in foreclosure and he’s six weeks from homelessness. Again. Sixteen years ago Mark was homeless in Hollywood. And now on the brink of homeless again, Mark is telling the story of the homeless. Armed with a small video camera and a slow laptop, Mark is talking to homeless people, capturing their story, and sharing the unedited footage on his vlog, Invisible People.
Mark is an example that homelessness can happen to anyone. I’ve talked before about homelessness being on the rise, and as the economy tanks it’s only going to get worse. Watch Mark’s videos and start seeing the homeless as people. Remember the words of Jesus: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” (Matthew 25:40 NIV). And take some action. Support a local shelter. Donate to a food bank.
And somebody hire Mark. Or better yet, somebody fund Invisible People so Mark can continue to share these stories.
In 2005 the Palmer family of Tulsa, Okla. started the process to adopt Francis, an orphaned child in Uganda. In January the Palmers—all six of them—will be moving to Jinja, Uganda to unite their family under one roof and finalize their adoption of Francis.
It’s a crazy story, and it keeps getting crazier. In a nutshell, the Palmers were granted guardianship of Francis but fine print stipulated that they had to come back to Uganda in three years to finalize the adoption, essentially fostering him for three years. Since the U.S. won’t grant a visa under those circumstances, Francis is stuck in Uganda. So his family is coming to him.
How amazing. Stories like this bring tears to my eyes. Adam Palmer, the dad of the family, is a friend of mine (I interviewed him back in 2005 about his book Taming a Liger: Unexpected Spiritual Lessons from Napoleon Dynamite) and I’m so excited to watch their story continue. You can read a newspaper article about their story and follow the journey on their blog.
Last night I picked a fight with Guy Kawasaki on Twitter. For those who don’t know, Kawasaki is a marketing genius, former brand evangelist for Apple and current venture capitalist. He’s a big name. One of his current projects is Alltop, a cool little site that offers the best of the web for any particular subject (say, church?).
I called Kawasaki out over the Alltop Twitterfeed, where anyone can sign up and let Alltop post tweets to their Twitter account. It’s essentially handing over the keys to your platform and ceding your voice to a commercial. A handful of people I follow on Twitter signed up when Kawasaki offered a signed copy of his new book. I started to notice when I saw friends posting tweets about stuff they normally didn’t talk about:
Is it stork time?: http://pregnancy.alltop.com is for you.
Mostly for lawyers: Electronic Discovery news: http://ediscovery.alltop.com
If you love bags, you’ll love this site: http://bags.alltop.com
And then different friends tweeting the exact same thing. I smelled a skunk. And it was Kawasaki.
I wrote this article after my homeless experience and hoped to find a publication interested in printing it (and paying me!). So far no such luck, so I think it’s safe to print it here and at least share it. If you’re interested in helping homeless families in the Twin Cities, you can still support my Facebook cause (thanks to those who already did show their support!). For more on homelessness, I highly recommend the videos at Invisible People.
I’ve never been homeless. I’ve never had to wonder where I was going to spend the night. I’ve never had to contemplate sleeping in my car. I’ve never had to consider who I would call if I lost my house and had nowhere to go. I’ve never had to consider how anyone could possibly sleep outside in 42-degree weather.
Until last month.
On Oct. 16, 2008 I spent the night homeless.
The Not-So-Homeless Experience
Now in the interest of full disclosure I should let you know that I signed up for the experience. I didn’t lose my house. I didn’t have to consider sleeping in my car. I wasn’t actually homeless. I joined more than 500 teens and adults from across the Twin Cities who became homeless for a night and camped out at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds to raise cash and awareness for homelessness. Our efforts raised more than $11,000 for Families Moving Forward and Project Home, two organizations that provide emergency shelters in the Twin Cities.
My wife has been on a craft kick the past few months like I’ve never seen.
One of the coolest projects she’s talked about lately is called Mama to Mama. The idea is for crafty people (i.e., not me) to spread some peace and handmade love. The crafty mind behind the big idea is Amanda Blake Soule, author of the Soule Mama blog and the book The Creative Family. She describes Mama to Mama like this:
“The simple act of creating something with intention and heart—for someone in need, can have a beautiful effect on the lives of others. We can, indeed, do something to create a more just and peaceful world … all with the simple, mindful and crafty work of our hands.”
Their first project is to make hats for newborn babies in Haiti. They’ll be distributed with Safe Birthing Kits to help reduce Haiti’s maternal mortality ratio (1 in 40, which is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. My wife already made a pile of the hats.
Since I’m not at all crafty, I’ll just applaud and support these efforts. Changing the world through craftiness. That’s cool.
In February the child sponsorship organization Compassion International sent a team of bloggers to Uganda. They’re doing it again this week, sending a team to the Dominican Republic. This trip doesn’t seem to be getting as much attention, but the stories are just as powerful. My favorite is reading 8-year-old Nick Challies’ blog and reading about two sisters meeting the kids they sponsor:
“My sponsored child, Rosemary, is so nice. We had so much fun and we swung on the swings together. I asked her lots of questions: Her favorite color is pink, and she is nine years old … just like me!”
Continue reading You Can Change the World: Compassion Bloggers