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.

Yet I was the guest of a respected academic community in which first year students (known as “rooks”) are permitted to walk only in straight lines. I watched one young man march directly out of a building till he reached the opposite curb, turn sharply to his left, march again till he was even with the door of the adjacent building, then turn sharply again to walk back inside. All right angles, all straight lines, and twice as many steps as I would have taken.

It was a great day nonetheless, discussing the condition of America and the need for an attitude of service with these bright young men and women. Some things surprised me, such as when I praised one student for military service and he rejected my gratitude. “It is an honor to serve,” he said. “I am proud to do it.”

I visited several classes, gave a reading in the library, learned from professor Diane Byrne PhD about Norwich’s service learning and culture of civic engagement, and delivered a lecture on Authentic Patriotism to the larger campus community.

Afterward I met 19-year-old Richard Well. He’d attended high school in Texas, across the street from Fort Sam Houston. There he learned about patriotism in a powerful way.

“I was part of the high school honor guard, serving whenever they buried homeless vets. The actual tasks were simple enough. But the hardest part sometimes was when there’d be nobody there. Which was most of the time. When we were finished, nobody was even there to take the folded flag.”

Well. It’s humbling, sometimes, to witness such a direct example of how our society could do better, and learn of such a clear response to the need. When people join the armed forces, they surrender their liberty for a period of time. They often surrender their innocence as well, because of what they see and experience. Sometimes they surrender their lives. Surely they deserve someone to witness their passing, and to honor their sacrifice.

That’s what Richard was doing. Now he’s studying in a military school. Whatever soldiering he winds up doing, I guarantee it will be informed by the experience at Fort Sam Houston.

Today is Veteran’s Day. Please don’t miss an opportunity, if you have one, to show a veteran your gratitude.

It’s a good joke, given how organizers of large events in D.C. routinely how many supporters showed up. (I was reminded of one of my favorite of these in the latest issue of The Atlantic. Michael Hirschorn recalled the anti-Obama protest of Sept. ’09, when organizers said the crowd was not 75,000 but two million, and provided a photo of the multitudes as proof. The only problem was that in the photo, the place where the National Museum of the American Indian has stood since 2004 was empty. Oops.)

This weekend the crowd was something like 200,000. It says something about the American appetite for civility, in this the nastiest campaign season I can remember, that so many people turned out and tuned in to listen to comedians make more sense than many of the people running for office.

Not surprisingly, at the end Jon Stewart turned sincere. His closing remarks were more moving, and more accurately portrayed the land we live in, than the polarized campaigns and negative advertising and the billion-dollar efforts to turn serious issues into wedges and reduce serious people to cartoons. Here’s Stewart’s speech at the rally.

My favorite part? “We work together to get things done every day. … We know instinctively as a people that if we are going to get out of the darkness and get to the light, we will have to work together.”

Now’s your chance. Here is the link to the B1Campaign, which is not running for any office nor contributing to any attack ads. It is a simple, nonpartisan tool to help you find human needs right where you live. Please test drive the search engine, with your area of interest and your zip code, and see if there is something that might be worth a bit of your time. If you find a local need that engages you, please write and let me know. I promise any authentically patriotic project you join will begin to mend the harm to your civic spirit that this campaign season has done.

In the town where I live, the best thing happening right now is the construction of three Habitat for Humanity houses. The people volunteering their time to provide these homes to strangers are enjoying themselves, making something good happen, and creating a manifestation of their community spirit that will stand for decades. I would join them, if I were capable of driving a straight nail. But I can tell you, from the times I’ve stopped by, they spend no time at all debating politics. They’re too busy building a better community.

And I would estimate the number of Americans who could benefit from that experience at somewhere around 320 million.

          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.”

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.

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.

What you’ll find here, in subsequent postings, will fall into a few categories:

• Problems or opportunities where American citizens are not involved in finding solutions, and how public engagement could make a difference,
• People whose initiative, service and patriotism leads them to make a visible, practical difference in their community and beyond,
• Ideas for strengthening our society to everyone’s benefit.

In part these ideas stem from my book Authentic Patriotism,and the efforts of some remarkable people to improve our society and culture. America is simply not as strong as it once was. We know this from the weak economy and the prolonged military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know it in our own sense of the nation’s well being. The numbers confirm these emotions:

• 40 million Americans live in poverty.
• Another 25 million line on the verge of poverty.
• 47 million do not have health insurance.
• Another 25 million are underinsured.
• 38 million Americans live with disabilities.
• 3.5 million Americans every year experience homelessness. In other words, need is no longer a fringe issue. It is part of the fabric of our nation.

This blog is going to explain why government no longer offers the degree of help it once did.  This blog will explain why the gains of capitalism offer less aid in reducing these needs.  Above all this blog will argue that the best solutions will come from individual Americans — who either invent new ways of helping their fellow citizens, or who give of their time and energy and heart to make one of those new ways succeed.  For every dark statistic, there will be bright ideas. For every person in need in this country, there are seven in a position to help.  Lastly, this blog is going to reveal that working for the betterment of our society is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have. Please return for future postings.  Please consider subscribing.  And please consider becoming an authentic patriot yourself.