Day Two (with ONE and World Vision)

What an honor!

First, just to honor that many Africans and their lives cut short by AIDS with our penny display.  Our 6.1 million pennies weighed nearly 20 tons and, if stacked one penny on top of the other, would reach six miles into the sky.  To see it and to understand what each penny represents, leaves no one unchanged.

Second, to partner with two such amazing organizations in their "Un-conventional convention" activity - making caregiver kits for African volunteers who are caring for their neighbors.  Each one brought something amazing to the table that made the day an incredible experience.

To get a sense of what the day was like, take a look at the video picture put together by our friend, World Vision staff person and "official Got Cents? photographer" for the day, Jason Miles:

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Caregiver Kit Initiative - Community Pages

When we met David Lane, the President and CEO of ONE (also known to many as "The ONE Campaign" or "ONE.org" or that cool organization that has interesting commercials with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, George Clooney, and hundreds of others talking about extreme poverty), we joked that we knew him well from our e-mail relationship.

[BTW: If you have no idea why that is funny, then please go to www.one.org and sign up now so that your voice will be heard along with millions of others saying, "we MUST end extreme poverty in the world"]

ONE is an incredible organization that emerged from three forces - a vision, a wish and action through advocacy for the world's poor.  The vision was for Bono to use his global celebrity status as an advocate without borders for the world's poorest of the poor.  The wish came during his acceptance speech at the TED awards three years ago. And from that wish developed ONE.org, an organization that mobilizes millions of people in the Western world to raise their voices on behalf of eliminating extreme poverty. 

In typical fashion for ONE (and carrying on the tradition of Bono), ONE does not have an agenda that is partisan in any way. Their message is agnostic when it comes to any political preference for a political party.  Thus, Senator Bill Frist and former Majority Leader and Senator Tom Daschle are the co-chairs of ONE.

At this event, David Lane spoke and so did Tom Daschle.  More importantly than their rousing speeches, however, was their leadership by example as they both stepped in line with the hundreds of volunteers and began building AIDS Caregiver Kits.

ONE was the primary organizer of the Un-Conventional Convention - a gathering place during each of the political party conventions around the idea that there are no political boundary lines on the issues of extreme poverty and AIDS.  At today's event, David Lane spoke of the power of people coming together to do something.  He spoke of the power of ONE's "ONE Vote '08" campaign and the new commercial they've released showing the power of all of us acting as one.

World Vision is perhaps the largest private relief agency in the world. (I've heard figures that would put their relief work behind only the United Nations.) Christian-run, they never preach or show judgment. Rather, the people we have had the honor to work with simply put love into action. Their caregiver kits are just one example. To date, they have built several hundred thousand of these kits, containing basic supplies: flashlight, notebooks, pens, rubber gloves, cotton balls, anti-fungal cream, Vaseline, acetametaphin, soap, wash cloths and other basics that we take for granted, but that are highly prized in Africa.

Better yet, these folks have developed an amazing system for supporting community groups who want to participate: each kit costs approximately $27 to supply and ship, but World Vision provides all the supplies, the training for how to run a kit build (big or small), and handles the shipping.

Perhaps the best of all, each kit contains a personal card from the builder, containing a greeting, a prayer or a special thought for the caregiver. We've been told that long after the supplies have disappeared from use, that the caregivers continue to carry the card as a reminder that someone in the United States cared that much!

What a radically positive and simple way for every person to be empowered to "do something" about the global AIDS pandemic!! (It fits so well with our little motto: "Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, it will be enough!")

World Vision supplied the entire caregiver kit build for today's event. They and their staff, made it possible for delegates, students of Manual High School and volunteers (young and old) to "do something!" Their staff showed people how and why. Their speakers gave people a sense of passion around what they were doing - Princess Zulu from Zambia who is HIV positive and has lost most of her immediate family to AIDS, spoke from her personal experience and passion, and Chris Daughtry and the band, Daughtry, spoke from a sense of empowerment and passion, and with a heart of compassion for the suffering people in the world. What a treat!!

There can be no question that this "little penny project" grabbed some attention.  

Not only did it make the news, but also the ONE.org blog. But perhaps the better indication of impact comes from three little stories from the day.

First, as the focal point when people walked in the door, this "little 75 foot by 30 foot penny AIDS ribbon" stopped people in their tracks.  With one little sign at the entrance that read, "1 Presidential term = 6.1 million lives lost to AIDS," each person was required to confront what that meant.  Those people walking through the door included those with notable public names: Daughtry, Lane, Zulu, Daschle, and others, but it also included the real superstars of the day -- the dozens of ONE volunteers and hundreds of participants who came alone, with friends, with children or as families to build caregiver kits.  The comments we received ranged from, "that's incredible," and "how tragic," to "how much does that weigh."

Second, the half dozen or so teachers from Manual High School who brought their students down for a short presentation from each of the non-profits, may never know the impact they had (or will have) on these students through this event.  Sure, there was the one special education student who couldn't stop shaking from being hugged by Daughtry, but there was also the special education student who wouldn't leave before she had gone through her entire backpack and pencil case to find every piece of change that she might contribute.  As she was leaving she said, "I want to do this more."  We handed her a card and told her we'd be honored to help.

Finally, there was the clean-up.  I know this will sound funny to the uninitiated, but to be there with 30 ONE.org volunteers, many World Vision staff and our little volunteer team, cleaning up 6.1 million pennies was almost a spiritual experience.  Here we were, working alongside people we had never met, sweating, getting dirty, many of us sitting on the floor simply picking up pennies, but sharing a common purpose and ethos -- to do something to help end extreme poverty, to feel as if we had made a small impact on the issue of the AIDS pandemic.  In those moments, we learned a little about the heart of the person we were working alongside.  We were given the opportunity to encourage and be encouraged by so many people who cared.  We were given the honor to participate by getting our hands dirty and "doing something" with a purpose far bigger than ourselves.

And, by the way, we cleaned up all those pennies in 45 minutes!!  What an amazing team of volunteers!!

I'll try to tell more stories later.  In the meantime, I've invited Eliza, Lil, Emily, Courtney and Aimee to share reflections and stories from the day.  As soon as I have those, I'll post them (along with more pictures)!

Thanks to our amazing team!!  Next time we do this, we a thinking we should have the advance team, the set-up team, the education team and the tear-down team.  

19,000,000 here we come!

Day One Addendum

Although I wrote the entry for "Day ONE," I was reminded by the five who were present that "you don't know what it feels like to lift that many pennies."  So, I invited the Got Cents? team to write some entries.  Eliza posts the following from the work on Monday:

Have you ever heard of cross-training or cross-fit? It’s probably the most intense set of workouts and fitness philosophy I’ve ever tried . . . . until today that is. If you want to get in shape, build muscle, and still have that “do good” glow about you, I’ll tell you the secret: lift 2 tons of pennies every day.*  That’s what we each did today and what we will each do again tomorrow . . . and then again next week! 

*tip – lift from the knees

(While I hesitate to correct Eliza, there were nearly 20 tons of pennies involved, so the five women probably each lifted closer to four tons each.)

Needless to say, we’re exhausted. Almost 20 tons of pennies now rest on the floor of Manual High School here in Denver.  I am impressed – not with our work, but with the fact that those 6,100,000 pennies each have a name.  Each of those pennies once breathed life. Four years ago each of those pennies lived in sub-Saharan Africa.  Today they exist in memory and in dust.

Walking around 6.1 million pennies I thought, “If I were God how would I love all of these people?” While many theological questions/debates swirl around in that wondering moment, I won’t really tackle them here. I will say, however, that meditating on the meaning of those 6.1 million pennies in the context of a loving creator was very humbling. 

I hope that tomorrow the school will fill with participants, all willing to go through the journey of reflection that Aimee and I did this afternoon.  I hope they travel further than we did on a path of compassion and action. I hope that 6.1 million little copper/zinc pieces of metal display the gravity of the crisis as well as the simple ways individuals can help.