Lebell

I really didn't want to get sucked back into this, but dammit, I care too much.

So here it is, what do YOU do to make a difference? Go ahead, blow you're own horn. The fact is, posting on a BBS probably isn't going to make a huge change in the world, so I want to know if that's all you do or if you actually give a rat's enough to walk your talk. Who knows, you may get a new perspective or gain an ounce of respect for someone

So WTF do YOU do, lebell?

Glad you asked


Contrary to appearances around here, I am fairly liberal socially and conservative fiscally, but I don't fit into any comfortable cubby (like I suspect is the case with some of you).

After seeing how Operation Rescue (remember them?) further traumatized women during one of the most stressful times in their lives, I spent 2 years volunteering every Saturday at the local Planned Parenthood and helped escort women going into the clinic (heck, half these people weren't even there for an abortion). I also attempted to engage in constructive discussions with the protesters. I am ashamed to admit that I wasn't always successful.

I got burned out on that, but thought I could further help when I joined a group called "Common Ground", which believed in finding common ground (get it?) between polarized opposites so that they could come together and find things they could work towards, instead of always fighting each other and wasting precious energy.

I have spent probably 3 or 4 dozen weekends helping coordinate and produce religious retreats for young people and adults, frequently being on the music team, sometimes leading it.

I have spent much of my adult life in a church choir or music group. Music I find is one of God's most special and moving ways of talking to and inspiring people and I would be selfish if I didn't share the gifts I have been given for Her people.

I have chaired a couple of committees at church, I have taught two years of church Sunday school, been an usher and eucharistic minister.

I was the lead in a production of "Murder in the Cathedral" (set in a real Cathedral) which was intended to focus on human rights violations in Central America. The tie-in was between Thomas Beckett and Oscar Romero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Romero

He and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoffer) are two of my personal heros.

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Anyway, those are ways that I have personally tried to make my corner of the world a better place.

I sincerely am interested in knowing yours.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Willravel

Numerous protests, contacting the media and representatives, and campaign volunteering keep me busy. I've spoken on behalf of about a dozen different organizations ranging from MASV to Second Step. I'm usually at meetings regarding local policy, also.

Daniel_

I try to improve the use of grammar and English on message boards. So I'm pointing out your use of "you're" in the OP.

I've wrked in community projects from time to time - I helped run my local Scout troop for a while in the past, and I've stood on street corners and knocked doors to raise money for our local Lifeboat service.

I've not done anything for a while, and maybe I ought to. I'm generally selfish until I remember to get off my bum and make the world a better place.

My dad has recently been travelling out to a clinic in rural India and donating a week at a time to train the staff there in some of the techniques that he uses in his specialty in the UK - it shames me to realise I wouldn't have thought of doing something like that.

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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guy44

Besides things like donating to charities and such?

I work for the Department of Children and Family Services, so I generally feel good about that.

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"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

ottopilot

I've worked with my parents and volunteered in shelters, habitat for humanity, charity drives, etc. since I can remember. Throughout high school, I worked at a development center for physically and mentally disabled children helping with self care and fitting those with severe disabilities with mechanical and automated assistance technologies (breath-operated and specialized movement computer-interfaces, sight and voice devices). When I was on the road for 5 years with my band, I volunteered at the development center during the combined 4 or 5 weeks I was home each year. While on the road, I convinced several people to complete their educations, go to college. In my post-road band years ... I work with our local Hospice organization, mentor and tutor at schools, volunteer as a reading and computer literacy teacher at a public adult education project. I coach soccer for primary age kids and strength-training for some high-schoolers (coaching great way to encourage and empower kids).

In the last 3 years, I have developed a successful consulting career that allows me to also substitute teach for kids that are abused, special-needs, severely mentally handicapped, low-income and homeless, and kids that are in the juvenile system. I will soon go back for my master's in teaching arts specializing in behavior studies to do this full time.

I generally don't go on about my personal life in threads. But I see where Lebell is going with this. What do we do in our real lives to really change things? Are we just content to talk about it here or really do "something", if not just to be helpful and kind to our fellow man. Living by example is much stronger than words. I will never forget the incredible people I continue to learn from daily.

I don't expect that everyone should be called to serve others with extreme gestures. We must live our lives and meet responsibilities. I would not hesitate to drop anything I volunteer for or give charity to if my family, job, or responsibilities begin to suffer. I'm not religious by any stretch, but my personal spiritual convictions tell me to strive to do what we can ... kind of a karma thing.

... Nice thread Lebell.

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"It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

allaboutmusic

I teach music to secondary schoolchildren. For some of them it can become their primary means of expressing the parts of themselves that they would be afraid to expose otherwise, and for many it is empowering to learn that they can actually be musical even if people have suggested otherwise.

amire

I'm a brother in a service fraternity (Alpha Phi Omega), and our chapter works on a community-oriented service project every weekend. Some of our projects have been doing construction on a Habitat for Humanity house, working at soup kitchens, cleaning graffiti, beautifying our campus, and walking dogs for the Humane Society. It's a great organization, and it's inspired me to keep volunteering after I've graduated.

I also plan to go into biomedical engineering, which has the promise of saving many lives!

roachboy

i've done alot of political organizing.

i teach, which i think is mostly about empowerment, getting folk to think differently about their world, and not with the same kind of politics that i talk about here--more abstract ususally, so more about trying to encourage thinking than telling what to think, more about treating thinking and forms of expression as craft, as process, than trying to dictate outcomes. working on argument, how to make them--and i make students i happen to agree with politically work as hard as those i don't agree with politically. because this, all of it, is about process and attention and relations to information, really. conceptual frameworks and ways to use them in the sorting and processing and ordering of information, trying to convince folk that the way they write and think is creating an order and not reproducing one that's out there in the world. you know.

this is one of the many ways in which roachboy is so different from me that i see roachboy as a fictional character more than anything else.

i like to think making strange soundart is a public action that makes the world a little Otherwise even if its transient and site-specific. i have parallel pollyanna ideas about the writing i put out into the world.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

filtherton

I am pursing a degree which I hope results in a career in R&D for alternative energy and/or energy efficient technologies. I'm also trying to raise a physically and mentally healthy child.

Beyond that, not much.

ASU2003

I reduce the amount of gas I consume by riding my bike to work and on short trips when the weather is nice. I don't use very much heat in the winter or AC in the summer. I pick up aluminum cans when I see them while riding my bike home from work. I save money and repay my debts and I'm not contributing to the debt problem. I even purchased a house last November when people were calling the housing market dead or dying. (It isn't that bad in my city though.)

In the next ten years I plan on working to become energy independent.

But, this is the question that politicians should be asking. Kennedy had it right.

Cynthetiq

I live in a major metropolitan. From what I understand from the MTA propaganda the average NYer has a carbon footprint 1/4 the size of the average American.

I walk to work some time. I usually take public transportation. If I'm in our car, it's usually with my wife and we're escaping the city. I drive less than 8,000 miles per year and have the odometer to prove it.

I volunteer for Lifebeat.org from time to time. I visit with AIDS patients, people who are in their last stages of life and know they will succumb to the disease soon. The house I go to is their last stop most of the time. New medications have made it not 100% of the time, but still more often than not, these people I meet will not make it through the end of the year.

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Lebell

Kudos to you, each and every one.

It's not enough to talk or as the saying goes, talk is cheap.

But I hope I and each one of you continue to try to make the world a little better place then it would have been without you.

Cheers!

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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m0rpheus

I volunteer working with High School kids through Junior Achievement.

Also I not only vote in every election but I actually take the time to look up what the different parties are proposing, then try to filter the b.s. away, instead of walking up and putting an X beside the same party every time. Sadly too many people do just that.

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"it never got weird enough for me." - Hunter S. Thompson

jewels

I work with the disabled and elderly.

I've voluntarily spent time and communicated with autistic kids.

I've raised three strong, healthy and independent young women.

I'm purchasing a brand new eco-friendly home and plan to purchase all HE appliances for it. I also intend to plant new trees on the property and raise some killer veggies in my garden.

I am beginning a new journey into health and hope to inspire others to follow.

I recycle. I even take my electronics and batteries to a station every couple of months.

I'm always looking for other ways that I can help to make a difference.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

CandleInTheDark

I run the conservative/libertarian student activist blog, Too Young to Be Right. As well, I plan on starting a university conservative student group at my radically left university. It should be fun.

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Where there is doubt there is freedom.

mixedmedia

I've raised at least two incredible, outspoken, concerned young women who have big mouths just like me and I'm working on a third, lol.
I've done some presidential campaign volunteering.
I've given away lots of money: Amnesty Int'l, Oxfam, CARE, Habitat for Humanity, IRC and many others, including a lot of 'hand-outs' to the homeless folk downtown.

The big one will be my nursing career, though. I intend to make good use of what I learn through local volunteer work and, once my youngest daughter is grown, I intend to volunteer my service to an international aid organization.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

noodle

i help kids die on their own terms.
and families deal with their terminally ill kids.
i do the cystic fibrosis walk every year.
once a year i drop $50 on "goodies" to distribute to the kids that are stuck eating hospital food.
i've logged over 3000 volunteer hours at the boggy creek gang camp.
my karma's good.

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snowy

I'm an alumni member of APO Unfortunately, our chapter went dead only a few months after I joined.

Currently, I volunteer for Planned Parenthood. In my job, I work with small children directly. It's very rewarding.

I'm not really comfortable with tooting my own horn in this manner, so I'll leave this short.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Willravel

What did you do?!

snowy

I didn't do anything. None of the new members--including myself--liked the president (whom we had no hand in electing), and so we weren't willing to put any effort into keeping the chapter alive.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Willravel

Coups are sexy.

Did you join another?

Lebell

I pm'd amire, but I am also an APO alum (mu pi). Interesting there are 3 here.

Anymore?

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Please Donate!

cj2112

First, I am a dedicated parent, who is actively involved in my children's lives. I spend time with them, I council them, I listen to them, I play with them. They are 14 and 12, and I am very proud of the people they are becoming.

I am on a team, on one sub-committe, and running another sub-committee for my local Relay For Life.