Archive for the 'Authentic Patriots' Category

Sometimes all it takes is a little contrast to put things in proper perspective.

Last week Authentic Patriotism won a silver medal in the Nautilus Book Awards. (You can hear more about that on my site’s news pages.) On the same day I found out, I received an email that put this award, while a thrill, in a different context.

The email came from Logan Ratzlaff, who I met last year when I gave a series of talks in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. His 3rd grade teacher, Beth Tice, had taught a class on the importance of sanitary water for maintaining human health. It’s a massive global issue, with one billion people routinely lacking safe drinking water. The negative impact on their health, quality of life and longevity is incalulable.

Logan decided to do something about it. He spent nearly all of his 4th grade year raising awareness and raising money. His goal was $5,000, collected 25 cents at a time.

Logan’s email last week brought the news that the campaign total was $6,073, which will enable 303 people to receive healthy water. His fund will go to Charity Water (www.charitywater.org), an organization whose operational costs are underwritten by private donors — so every penny Logan raised will actually help people.

Logan, before reaching 5th grade, has provided an excellent example of what one determined person can accomplish on others’ behalf. I’m happy that my book praising these values has won some recognition. But I’m happier to know authentic patriots like Logan Ratzlaff.

As it turns out, the rich are not so very different from you and me after all. Or at least, some of the very richest Americans are discovering the merits of philanthropy that mere mortal earners have known for years.

          Last week Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, in a joint response to the recession, called on fellow billionaires to give away half of their money in their lifetimes. The invitation included people like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, MacAndrews and Forbes CEO Ronald Perelman, and Comcast founder Gerry Lenfest.

          If the nation’s wealthiest men and women answer this do-gooder call to action, it will make a measurable difference in the lives of people across the country. The Gates Foundation, with Buffett as a board member and contributor, seeks to eradicate infectious disease, improve economic opportunity in the Third World, and foster education and libraries in the United States. How unusual, for the super-rich to serve as moral role models. Imagine an America in which generosity enjoyed greater status than conspicuous consumption.

          Philanthropy simply matters more today. Government is too hamstrung by debt – now approaching $13 trillion – to respond to growing human needs. Likewise now that capitalism functions in global markets for labor, capital and customers, free enterprise has lost much its power to enable people to lift themselves out of need. The efforts and contributions of individual Americans offer the best remaining solutions to our nation’s problems.

          But billionaires are not in the lead on these issues. People of far less wealth have been giving time and money for others’ benefit in increasing doses over recent decades. The United States was home to 15,000 non-profit foundations in 1960. Today there are 60,000. Between 1997 and 2007 the number of U.S. non-profits grew by 30%, to 1.6 million today. Each one provides quiet evidence that government and the marketplace cannot begin to address the nation’s needs.

What’s more, last year Americans gave nearly $304 billion to charity. Some naysayers seized on the fact that this represented a 3.6 percent drop from the year before. But with some 10 million people currently unemployed, and with the stock market shedding trillions in value since late 2008, a decrease in philanthropy of a mere 3.6% actually demonstrates Americans’ widespread and sustained commitment to helping others.

There are sound reasons for this level of sacrifice. Record numbers of Americans are living in poverty, record numbers are hungry, record numbers are winding up in jail. Among the developed nations, this country ranks worst in people without health insurance, worst in children born to unwed mothers, worst in violent crime, worst in bankruptcies and worst in teen pregnancy. With unprecedented levels of homelessness among families, the average homeless person in America today is nine years old.

Need, in other words, is no longer a fringe issue. It is woven deeply into the fabric of every community. Americans from all walks of life know this reality, from foreclosures on their streets to special students in their kids’ schools to the homeless person they pass on the way home from work every day. If they do not experience need, they see it. And thus they have been responding.

Billionaires are more than welcome to join the effort to reduce these needs, if not for the good of the country then for the sake of their own consciences. As Bloomberg himself put it, “The best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker.”

The nearest place to buy groceries in my small Vermont town is the Shelburne IGA, where Mark Lewis is front-end manager. That means he’s in charge of the colorful ladies who work the registers, and the diligent teens who bag groceries. Mark is pretty colorful himself, wearing shorts nearly year-round and always sporting a bright Hawaiian shirt.

A decade ago, he learned that a friend in the meat department had a developmentally disabled son. So Mark decided to do something for the Special Olympics – the folks who provide athletic competition for people with developmental challenges.

Mark only has a high school education, though. He’s not in a position to write a big check. That does not mean he is incapable of contributing financially — or of being a role model to humble the most philanthropic among us. On the contrary, he found exactly the way to do his part: the Penguin Plunge.

Every February the Vermont chapter of the Special Olympics (www.vtso.org) cuts through the frozen surface of Lake Champlain in Burlington, and the next morning people with pledges from friends and co-workers dive into the open water. Some years on the plunge day the air temperature is below zero, plus wind chill, so the first plungers have to break a film of refrozen ice. Some years it can be a balmy 30. Mark shows up, regardless.

But first, in December and January, Mark spends his lunch break going door to door asking people to support his plunge. The first year his sponsors gave $750. In 2010, Mark raised $15,896. His total from all his years of plunging is approaching $100,000. In fact, because he has been the biggest fund-raiser for six years running, Mark gets to break the overnight ice.

He shrugs off any praise. “It’s really not that bad. I’m in the tent beforehand, and I’m not in the water very long. My wife is the one with the hard part, waiting there in the wind all that time.”

Perhaps. But with the Vermont’s running of the 2010 Special Olympics coming in early June, Mark’s wintertime selflessness on behalf of a larger purpose makes the thrill of competition available to many more athletes.

“I’ve been blessed with four lovely children. But I think if you do something for somebody else, hopefully it will come back to you. It’s a great feeling to be able to do something for other people.”

 Spoken like a true Authentic Patriot.

Already a surprising number of people have commented on this site, and the initial blog. They’ve all done so through emails to me directly.

While this kind of contact is always welcome, I thought it might be helpful to explain some ways your comments can be visible for other people to appreciate besides me.

• You can comment directly on the blog, and your thoughts will be visible to visitors to this site.
• You can go to the Facebook page for Authentic Patriotism (especially if your comment pertains primarily to the book) and post your thoughts there — where thousands of people will see it promptly. Here is the Authentic Patriotism Facebook page.
• You can go to the Facebook page for the B1 Campaign (especially if your comment is about a nonprofit you admire or an example of authentic patriotism in action). Again, it will be posted for people to see right away. Here is the B1 Campaign Facebook page.
• You can do all of the above.
• You can do all of the above and send me chocolate.

My hope is that many people will participate in these ways, to enlarge and improve upon my ideas, and to add their creativity, initiative and experience to the whole effort. What we all have at stake is the well-being of our nation.

Thanks much.