HappyRant

Athletes for Hope

I'm no huge fan of a lot of the professional athletes I see out there in the limelight. Too many seem to have developed extraordinarily in their physical domain, but not so much as people. But every once in a while someone comes along that makes me go, wow. The athlete that uses his or her status to make a positive impact, rather than just a source of ego fuel.

This morning, with Athletes for Hope, I ran across twelve of them...

A group of 12 athletes -- the ultimate superstars -- who have rewritten the record books in their own sports are now passing that passion for excellence on to the rest of the country. But the prize is bigger than any medal or any ring. This prize, and the formation of the new charity Athletes for Hope, is about making the world a better place.

It started with soccer superstar Mia Hamm, tennis great Andre Agassi and cycling legend Lance Armstrong. The long-established champions of giving back decided to reach out to their fellow athletes to see if together they could do even more.

Now they have assembled a dream team of philanthropy that includes gravity-defying skateboarder Tony Hawk, explosive running back Warrick Dunn, racing king Jeff Gordon, Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee, former tennis phenom Andrea Jaegger and boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

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Freedom Writers

If you want an inspiring, make-you-want-to-change-the-world kind of movie, go out and rent Freedom Writers. 

Based on the true story of Erin Gruwell, it chronicles the work of an idealistic new teacher who lands in a school in Los Angeles with deep racial rifts between the students in the post-Rodney King days. Many of the students have essentially been abandoned by the system.

Rather than buy into the assumption that her students are "unteachable," she finds ways to break through their shells, break down the walls they have erected between themselves, and introduce them to learning in a way that feels relevant to them.

On the Freedom Writers Foundation website it describes the students' attitude like this: "...on our first day of high school, we had only three things in common: we hated school, we hated our teacher, and we hated each other." The movie follows the transformation from students who have given up to students who care about the future and care about each other.

Since her teaching days, Gruwell has gone on to found the Freedom Writers Foundation, aimed at spreading the Freedom Writers Method she developed.

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Travel with a do-gooder spin: Voluntourism

More and more, I see people drawn to making a difference in the world. That's even being reflected in their choice of vacations, as "voluntourism" increases in popularity:

...More Americans are starting to feel the same way about vacations with a charitable or humanitarian purpose, where they can build housing or schools, collect field data or work at a refugee camp, orphanage or archaeological dig.

While the trend is hard to quantify, a wide variety of environmental, medical, nature, children's and other groups as well as churches report that participation in volunteer vacations is on the rise.

Surveys conducted recently by CheapTickets.com, Travelocity and the Travel Industry Association of America confirm that consumers are becoming more interested in vacations with a voluntarism aspect, also known as "voluntourism."

Opportunities that once existed largely with nonprofit activist groups are being adopted by a wide range of travel agencies and tour operators, too. Sally Brown, who heads the Indianapolis not-for-profit group Ambassadors for Children, said the number of travel organizations of various kinds that offer voluntourism trips has probably doubled in the past three years.

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Invincible

I just watched Invincible, a movie about Vince Papale, a Philadelphia substitute teacher and part-time bouncer who tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles in a tryout open to the public and made the team.

It's a great feelgood movie. Even if you're not a big fan of sports movies, you'll probably like this one, as there's a minimum of locker room inspiration. Most of the action takes place in a bar and around South Philadelphia.

While I loved the movie, the bit that really stuck in my head most was a (very) minor subplot.  The movie is set in South Philly in the mid-70's. Blue-collar and gritty. One of the minor characters frequents the bar where Papale works. Slouched over the bar with a drink in his hand, throughout the movie he makes negative comments about Papale's potential, and how he's going to still be nothing when all the excitement about trying out for the team dies down.

Tired of it, Papale asks the guy who owns the bar, "What's his problem?" The bar owner says, "He's just scared." He has no job, no family. He feels like a complete loser.

All the guys in the bar also play on a neighborhood football team (games are played on a dirt lot with no pads, helmets, etc.). Early in the Eagles' season, goaded by the negative guy, Papale ends up playing a game with them because they're getting beaten. At the end of the game, Papale throws a touchdown to the negative guy.

You could see how, for that moment anyway, the negative guy felt like a winner.

That got me thinking how many people there are out there who feel like a loser in their lives. They're disappointed, in themselves, in the world. Maybe they've given up hope. And that has an impact on how the treat the world around them.

What would happen if something turned that on its head? What would happen if they started to see potential in themselves? How would that impact their lives? How would that impact the world they came in touch with?

Some of the most inspiring people I know help turn people's belief from "I can't" to "maybe I can." Some of it is a magic fairy dust kind of inspiration, but a lot of it is a breath of reality. Most people have so much more potential than they will ever give themselves credit for.

We never see what happens to the negative guy. He doesn't magically get a job. But the look on his face for that one brief moment, the pride and the happiness, planted a seed in my head.

We all have the potential to be a winner, however we choose to define that. When we help someone believe in themselves, we unlock the potential to change the world for the better.

Whew! All that from a minor scene in the movie. Cool, eh?

Student competition blends business, giving back to communities

More positive trends in the world of business, this time at the up-and-coming level. Students from colleges and universities around the western US were in Seattle this week for the regional competition of SIFE, aimed at their business acumen on ways to give back to their communities.

Fifteen teams from colleges and universities from the West faced off as part of the annual regional competition for Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), an international nonprofit organization aimed at getting college students to create economic opportunities in their communities.

More about SIFE from their website...

Working in partnership with business and higher education, SIFE establishes student teams on university campuses. These teams are led by faculty advisors and they are challenged to develop community outreach projects that reach SIFE's five educational topics:

• Market Economics
• Success Skills
• Entrepreneurship
• Financial Literacy
• Business Ethics

The winners of the regional competitions move on to the national level, and ultimately to the SIFE World Cup.

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Huggable Heroes

Often I find myself inspired by the stories I discover of people working to make the world a better place. But sometimes I'm just humbled. If I ever start to get too full of myself or too puffed up about what I'm doing in the world, stories like twelve year old Talia Leman's put it in perspective.

Leman has made headlines before for her community service: She has raised more than $340,000 for causes such as hurricane relief, cancer and AIDS, and founded her own charity, RandomKid.

That boggles my mind. She's twelve! When I grow up, I want to be just like her.

Tania is one of the nominees for Build-A-Bear Workshop's annual Huggable Heroes award. If you ever need a shot of inspiration, trot on over and take a look at the past years' winners.

The Huggable Heroes award was inspired by Nikki Giampolo, "a young girl who loved life, loved children and loved teddy bears."   

She shared that love by giving bears and their hugs to all those around her, including her doctors. In 2002, at the age of 15, Nikki lost her life to cancer. Her family and friends shared with Build-A-Bear Workshop Nikki's story of courage and her hopes of helping children with cancer. Moved by Nikki's life and the way she lived it Nikki's bear was created and supports children's cancer research and other children's health issues.

Huggable Heroes, like Nikki, are special people who do things both big and small. Nikki's generosity provided the inspiration for our Huggable Heroes program.

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Laughter yoga is no laughing matter (no wait! Yes it is!)

There's a movement afoot to change the world one belly laugh at a time. Started in 1995 by Dr. Madan Kataria in India, laughter yoga has turned into a worldwide phenomenon, with 5000 laughter yoga clubs in 53 countries.

Why has it become so popular? This article summarizes the benefits:

There was a vast body of scientific evidence to show regularly laughing did have health benefits – it relaxed the muscles, easing stress, invigorated the heart rate, and improved the immune system.

What was interesting was that people seemed to gain the same benefits  whether they were genuinely laughing or just faking it. 

"If you are faking laughing, the breathing and physical exertion is  using exactly the same muscles," he said. 

Whether a person was honestly tickled, or just going through the motions, the body experienced the same sensations and benefits – as did the mind.

"The body is trumping the mind by starting to laugh without any reason  – it can actually make a person more joyful. 

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A Story of Faith

When an Amish friend of Melynna Hewitt's shared the bad news that her seven year old niece had been diagnosed with cancer, Hewitt sent her a stuffed rabbit. But she had a strong desire to take it a step further.

"I literally felt an extreme urge, a persistence that said you really need to write Mary Ann a story.  You really need to tell her why a stranger who lives 800 miles away would send her a stuffed animal."

What came out was A Story of Faith, a tale about a young Amish girl in Indiana about to start treatment for cancer, and the stuffed rabbit named Faith that walked in and became her "bestest friend." That story turned into a journey of giving and hope Hewitt would never have anticipated when she sat down to write it.

Melynna never meant for her story to go where it did - illustrated by a teacher friend, offered to a publisher, and accepted too.

But along the way the Hewitt's decided to put their story of faith to work.  They published it themselves, spent $15,000 of farm budget, and watched miracles take place.

The book really did help that little Amish girl. Hewitt says, "As of December the 31st we have, not only recouped one hundred percent of our expenses, [but] we have sent the family $23,400.00."

It hasn't just been beneficial for the little girl's family. It's been good for Hewitt. As she describes it...

"It's been the most personal, inspirational part of my life I've ever experienced."

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