Another Drop in the Bucket
The Centrillo family came through with a $50 per mile donation for my run. When I do the math, a half marathon really is a long run! I can actually feel little children dancing in my heart. I don't think there is any greater feeling in the world. That pushes our total raised to date to $7,475.

Ben & Jerry’s and the Jolly Lama

The Raising Malawi project is so critical to the lives and wellbeing of so many little children, that sometimes when I talk about it, if I'm not extra careful, I get all choked up and teary. But I'm not Sally Struthers. That approach just doesn't work here. Sally's approach left me feeling sad. Hungry.

What Sally didn't have back then was a solution. We absolutely have one now. According to Jeffrey Sachs' plan, it takes 5 years to flip a village from total despair to self-sustaining!

So, I think for this effort (at least my little part of the bigger effort) to get Americans to take notice and contribute, the tone needs to be more upbeat. Fun, even!

So far, we've raised $6,825. Now what? I don’t really have ideas. But I have a huge capacity to receive ideas. And, in this month of Virgo, I am trying like hell to expand that vessel so I can receive more. Looking at what’s been landing in my bucket this past two weeks, I may have the beginnings of the next concept for “Fundraising Malawi”.

1. My friend Donna from grad school made a very generous donation to sponsor me in my NY Half Marathon. She also suggested that to inspire bigger donations, a friend of hers doing an Avon walk offered to bake a dozen cookies for every donation over $200. Once she did that, donations rolled in. (Go figure)

2. Over drinks that same day, my friend Steve mentioned that his wife has been known to take on big baking projects – like making cookies for an entire high school! – and she’s been toying with the idea of turning that passion and drive into a business. But what?

3. At breakfast yesterday, feeling beat to hell after my 13.1 mile run/jog/crawl, I pitched a rough version of a “Baking to End Extreme Poverty” idea to David. He encouraged me to do something less of a one-off where I have to work hard for a small return, but look more to connecting with an existing infrastructure, like for example, W Hotels. Maybe see if I can inspire them to run a promo like, “round up for Malawi” ... so your drink bill is charged, whatever, an extra .20 or .90 for a good cause. It doesn't require much of people and they'd be generally happy to do it. Do the math across an international chain and you’re talking big dollars. While I didn’t exactly feel the idea itself was a good fit, I have to recognize that he’s talking about marketing. I have a very costly degree on the subject and this may be a good time to dust it off.

4. I read this article in the Aug. 14, 2006 issue of Newsweek. It’s about the growing trend in Buddha-themed restaurants and bars … It’s cool. It’s chic. It’s so not what Buddhism is about. The article explains, “ Gregory Levine, a University of California, Berkeley, associate professor and Buddhist-art expert, suggests that because Buddhism is seen as exotic, it's easier to exploit. In other words, Americans who find Buddha-booze sexy might be offended by sipping martyr-tinis under a giant illuminated crucifix.”

But here’s what caught my interest. Some Buddhist-smart-marketers have gotten into the act. “Lama Surya Das, American Buddhist founder of the Dzogchen Foundation, is developing a flavor with Ben & Jerry's called Jolly Lama—a gold-and-maroon-swirled sorbet that's in the early stages of review—and plans to donate his profits to a Tibetan refugee project….. ‘Buddha's open-minded,’ he says. ‘He taught the middle way, not a way of austerity or grim un-worldliness.’"

5. I woke up this morning thinking about my marketing class at Northwestern with Margaret Felcher and the Ben & Jerry’s book that was required reading. I don’t know what’s next, but today I plan to pitch another “group project” to some of my favorite, most-inspired colleagues from NU: Donna, Ted, Roger, Amy, Colleen….and Ananya if the time zone doesn’t kill you.

Maybe to start, we can read Ben & Jerry's most recent Social Audit off their Website.

And Ted and I can take a road trip and tour the Ben & Jerry's site this month? We’ll send you a video...or come with! Ted has a big place. He’ll put you up, right Ted?

B&J and their 3-part mission statement definitely do social marketing right. We’re sure to learn something we can use. Come on guys. It’ll be just like old times!

We're in the final stretch of the NY 1/2 Marathon Fundraising Race!

Total pledged and/or donated thus far is: $1,825!

Thank you all so much for your generosity and support!

I know there are more pledges to follow, but I don't know exact amounts, so I can't thank you yet. Special thanks so far go out to:

David Duncan, Donna Bellamy, Leib Dodell, Justin Finkelstein, Ying Shiau, Sharon McNulty, Gretchen Lang, Kasha Cacy, Sang Leng Trieu, Damon Green, Eleanor Bryant and Susan Piotroski.

Pluto got demoted to "dwarf planet" today. I think the more PC term is "little planet", but science can be harsh. Basically, by current planetary standards, there are at least 50 additional qualifying planets floating around up there. So rather than creating solar confusion, astronomists figured it best to tighten up the standards.

My friend Jon explained it to me. I met Jon on a plane six years ago. He works at MIT, Lincoln Labs doing all sorts of cool, geeky, patent-worthy stuff. I was sitting in his window seat as the plane was about to take off. He comes rushing onboard all disheveled and urgent-looking just barely making the flight. His whole being makes me think of him as the Harrison Ford of science. So, I asked him what to make of this Pluto thing.

He told me, BBC covered it pretty well (that's where I got these images)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5282440.stm

But I understand his explanation better. He told me, "there had been an attempt to come up with an "objective" definition of a planet; something we could use in other solar systems as well.

First cut at it was something that orbited the sun (rather than another planet e.g., the Moon) and was big enough that gravity made it round. This caused an uproar as immediately there were 12 planets under this definition with likely hundreds more.

So, then they tried, 'a planet is an object orbiting the sun that can clear its orbital belt of other objects'. Pluto fails this test as it crosses Uranus's orbit and some day Uranus will clear Pluto out of its orbit...

So that leaves 8 planets, with tiny Pluto relegated to a "dwarf planet" ... because it is considerably smaller than the moon."

I took a Kabbalah astrology class a while ago. So you know, every sign has a ruling planet and energy. I'm Aquarius, so even though I'm a rebel, I'm ruled by Saturn, which means I can come off as a goodie two-shoes. I'll briefly lay out the signs and their ruling planets so you can follow along:

Aquarius and Capricorn are ruled by Saturn. Saturn is about limits. Structure. Boundaries. A+B=C. I draw my discipline from Saturn's energy.

Pisces and Sagittarius are ruled by Jupiter. Jupiter is the biggest planet. It's about expansion. Generocity. Miracles. Success.

Aries and Scorpio are ruled by Mars. This is my man David, Cephora my best bud, and my mom. Mars is about war. It's how you fight. It's how you work. It's how you attack. These people are all crazy. ;)

Leo is ruled by the sun. My friend Bob is a Leo, although he doesn't really act like it, which is weird, because the Sun is who you are. It controls your basic structure. Everything hangs off it.

Libra and Taurus are ruled by Venus. Venus is about what you love. What you find exciting and beautiful. It's the only planet that goes clockwise.

Virgo and Gemini are ruled by Mercury. Mercury is the closet to the sun. It's about speed. Communication. Intellect. Time. Mental speed. Hold that thought a minute, because we just entered the new moon of Virgo, which dictates the kind of energy available for all of us to draw on this month.

Cancer is ruled by the Moon. The moon is your inner self. It's your deepest emotions. It represents your previous lives. It's your hidden personality. My moon is also in Aquarius (so I'm an Aquarian thru and thru), but my rising sign is Cancer, which tells you the kind of soul I am. Like my soul's aura.

If you know exactly when you were born, go to www.ephemeris.com and look up your "sun sign" (that's your sign), your "moon" (that's the hidden you; your essence) and your rising sign, (that's the planet that was on the horizon at the moment your soul came into the world.)

I can say a lot more about Astrology, because I love that stuff, but I want to take a minute to talk about Virgo and what's available to us this month. Specifically, what I'm doing during Virgo to help "Raise Malawi".

This month is about preparations for the Light. I'll say that in English, “as you sow, so shall you reap.” Is there something you want? Something you really desire? You can have it. But you need to do all the work this month to create the vessel to receive whatever your heart desires.

You got something to clean up with someone? Do it. Clean it up! Clean it out. Create more space; a bigger vessel to receive. Make amends. Mom, let's go get coffee! I want a big fat millon-gallon vessel for children in Malawi. What do I have to do for that?! I'm willing. I swear. This month is the last male-energy month till next April. Crank it out! You begin to reap your creation next month...or get a lot closer to it. If you are going after something big, and why wouldn't you, it won't be easy. Do the work!

OK.

So, I say that because my desire for funds for Raising Malawi has been strong, but passive. I'm going to give it one last hoorah this month. I am going to meet with anyone and everyone who will have the conversation with me to stir the pot of ideas for how we can work together for this amazing cause.

By Christmas, together, we will have raised $25K for kids in Malawi. There is no possibility for this not to happen.

So, when did Bill Gates get so active? My Kabbalah teacher from my "Rules of Engagement" class -- AKA: Spiritual tips to land a man for Bridgett Jones-like females -- says (more as a matter of personal opinion than Kabbalistic teaching) that it's Melinda behind the shift. Women are more in touch with the 99% reality -- the "real reality" of life, not just the illusion of the 1% we see everyday.

Maybe. It looks like Bono had something to do with it too, though. I found this article in Time Magazine, December 26, 2005


He's changing the world twice," says Bono of Bill. "And the second act for Bill Gates may be the one that history regards more."

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year.

And now here's what I love about Bono -- He has the passion. He has the facts. He has the ambition. He makes big things happen even in the face of no agreement -- Gates almost declined the meeting. Here's an excerpt from the Time article:

"World health is immensely complicated," says Gates, recalling that first encounter in 2002. "It doesn't really boil down to a 'Let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be all that valuable."

It took about three minutes with Bono for Gates to change his mind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another computer nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts and data with a tenderness most people reserve for their children, and Bono was hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up. "He was every bit the geek that we are," says Gates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who helped broker that first summit. "He just happens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician."

Makes me proud to be a geek!

Today's Wall Street Journal ran a rather encouraging, slightly remarkable story about AIDS. If you actually believe it's possible, and I do, then it would appear that we're on the verge of something huge in health science.

Basically, findings from two separate studies 15 years in the making suggest that when AIDS (or certain cancers or hepatitis C) shuts off a body's immune system, there is a way to flip the switch back on -- namely a molecule called PD-1, a natural regulator of the human immune system.

There're still problems and setbacks (e.g., six healthy humans testing a new drug in clinical trials in London had their immune systems fly into overdrive, landing them in the ICU), but at least we know which way to point the ambulance. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding experiments with Hep C patients to see if they can get their immune systems working again. Good for them. Someone needs to put up the money. We keep thinking it needs to be "somebody else." That's such crap. Every problem affecting the human race is all of our problem. And it's going to take all of us to solve it in money or energy or heart.

I watched Lorenzo's Oil on TV a few weeks ago. I cried my eyes out at Susan Sarandon's character's conviction to find a cure for her son Lorenzo's de-myelinated sheaths, which caused him to lose most muscle function other than blinking his eyes or moving a finger. No big budgets to fund research for this problem (ALD), so his parents led the charge. In the end, they discover the preventative solution to be a concoction of virgin olive oil and a rapeseed oil. Rachael Ray could whip it up in a 30-minute show...for less then $40 a day...with a little EVOO. Rachael Ray drives me crazy.

Anyway, Lorenzo's real-life mom died a few years ago of cancer. I wonder if this new PD-1 molecule could've saved her. I mean it. I honor her. If more of us were like her, I think death will be optional someday.

8/19/2006. Five years ago today, I boarded a one-way flight to New York with 2 carry-on bags and 2 checked-in boxes of shoes. I was leaving Chicago for good; heading for everything that scared me: career change, no friends, no home and a freakishly big city that I knew nothing about, other than it being freakishly big.

I was getting comfortable in Chicago. Kind of arrogant. Queen of my own mountain. I didn't like that about me. So I needed to really push myself to grow. Crack myself in half. I study archetypes as a passion, and I knew I needed to reawaken "The Wanderer."

I was going to work for Lowe Lintas -- my first ad agency. They moved me here. They set me up in corporate housing by Carneige Hall in Midtown/Central Park South.

I met this guy Eamonn (as in Aimin' to please Julia) that week in Times Square. He stepped on my flip flop as we were crossing at the light. He said, "Oh gosh, I'm sorry", in a heavy Irish accent. You don't hear that accent much in Chicago. He was a cross between Paul McCartney, George Harrison and George Clooney. We talked for one minute before he told me he was going to -- where else? -- a bar. Would I join him for a drink? I wanted nothing intimate. Nothing serious. Only fun. We dated the next three years.

My second week here, he took me to see the World Trade Center. I remember looking up at the twin towers with him in awe. We talked about them like the invincible Titanic they were. We actually had a conversation about the '93 terrorist bombing at the WTC being such a ridiculous effort. I stood in shock two weeks later watching the towers burning from my office window.

I have a lot of stories about what followed, but the reason I'm sharing this much on my blog is because Eamonn (whom I have cut all contact with for many reasons) has contacted me to say he has some money that he owes me that he would like to return.

If that's true, I will take the money back. Not sure how much of it he has or plans to return. But whatever it is, I will donate it to "Raising Malawi" because I feel the money is no longer mine -- or his.

I have already written it off as a bad loan. And he never earned it, which on a spiritual level causes "bread of shame", a source of guilt that will hold you back now or later.

I think the reason he would find me now to return it is because I'm putting out this energy around my cause and he picked up on it. I believe that happens on spiritual level. On an ego level, I am cautious that this is just another ploy by a master manipulator to get me to return his calls.

Either way, it's a good sign if money is coming.

The 16th Annual International AIDS Conference was held in Toronto this past week (Aug 13-18, 2006)

Combatting HIV/AIDS is Goal #6 of the Millennium Dvpmt Goals, so I figured I'd blog up 3 things I learned as a result.

#1) Canada does cool things with its money.

#2) The Gates Foundation is making the fight against AIDS a priority to the tune of $500 million. Gates is even hopeful for the next big breakthrough, specifically the discovery of a microbicide or an oral prevention drug that can block the transmission of HIV. (Who knew?)

#3) Never go to South Africa if you need to be counselled or treated for HIV.

I started doing my research last Sunday when David came home from a business trip to Seoul. On his way home, he arranged a short visit to Toronto to see his son, Tyler (“the dude”). They're from there. David told me that news of the AIDS conference was everywhere. Then he gave me a quarter. We thought it was a 25-cent coin with the AIDS ribbon! I was so excited! That's such a huge commitment to a global cause!

But it was dark and I didn't look close enough... or only saw what I wanted to see... Alas, the ribbon is pink. (Breast cancer awareness). But it's still cool, so I figured I'd mention it. The Royal Canadian Mint says it does research on various themes all the time and this one kept coming up at the top, so they approached the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and rolled out 30 million of these collector coins.

Good idea.

OK, back to the AIDS conference --

Bill and Melinda Gates kicked it off. Bill said stopping AIDS is the top priority of its foundation. The Gates Foundation just announced a $500 million grant to the Global Fund, which is active in 131 countries. Gates explained the Global Fund, "gets HIV drugs to more than half a million people. It provides access to testing and counseling to nearly 6 million people. It offers basic care to more than half a million orphans."

He talked about some of the encouraging and disturbing signs in the battle against AIDS. He told this story, "On our trip to Rwanda last month, Melinda and I went to a clinic, where they showed us a picture of a thin, sickly man, clearly suffering from AIDS. I was staring at this picture when a healthy, smiling man walked into the room and said hello. It took me a minute to realize — it was the same man. This is what treatment is doing for more and more people in the developing world. We have to build on it — by seeking more funding, creating cheaper drugs with fewer side effects, and designing more practical diagnostics."

I had a similar revelation -- (BLOWN AWAY) when I came across this "before ARV and after ARV" ("Anti-retroviral" drugs) picture.

I can't upload the picture to this site, but PLEASE TAKE A LOOK! It shows exactly how ARVs are working. CLICK HERE AND GO TO GOAL #6. If you don't want to listen to the 2-minute slide show movie (11 slides), just click on Slide #8. That picture completely altered my understanding of what is possible with meds.

The "before" guy is just a skinny, sad hopeless case of someone who's going to die. The "after" guy -- one year later -- is so full of light and vibrance....I keep thinking he can work a farm now, and raise his kids so his old mom doesn't have to step into his boots.

When a reporter asked Gates how much all this would cost, Gates said, "The amount of money that's required for universal treatment or the things around prevention far exceed the amount that any individual government, certainly any foundation, can possibly provide....Obviously the AIDS epidemic is going to require all actors, particularly governments, to dig deep and make this a high budgetary priority."

Last thing I'll share about AIDS -- I went out with the account team Thursday night. (I'm at Ogilvy now). There were free drinks. I didn't eat because there were a lot of wings and I don't eat meat, but I had three red wines -- my limit before I get really stupid. My new work buddy Gretchen, I would have to say had at least four drinks, because she said she went home and cooked up a grilled cheese, plopped down with her sandwich to talk to her husband and shortly thereafter, fell off the bed.

Anyway, when I got home I flipped on the news and caught a segment on HIV treatment in South Africa. Apparently, they have access to treatment, but there's some serious misguidance in public health education. What is it? Well, the Health Minister there, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has made nutrition and natural remedies a cornerstone of her AIDS policy.

To put that in perspective, experts generally say that patients should start ARV treatment when their CD4 cell count, a measure of immune system response, drops below 350.

The minister of health, who represents government policy is telling the estimated five million South Africans who are HIV-positive that they should deal with maintaining their health if CD4 counts are higher than 200. The official prescription for doing that consists of garlic, beetroot and olive oil. If that's not working so well, try adding lemon. Obviously, that program tastes bad and is costing a lot of lives.

So, that was a big eye opener. And a downer. I was looking at this woman, the health minister, and wondering if she would be promoting the same prescription to her own baby or husband or parent if they got HIV. I don't know.

South Africa had an exhibit at the Toronto AIDS conference -- featuring displays of garlic and other natural foods along with anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. I read it was stormed by supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's most vocal AIDS activist group. Apparently, they tried to seize the garlic and other foodstuffs from the display, damaging part of the exhibit. (Policy.org.za, 8/19/2006)

In two weeks (8/27/06), I will run the first-ever New York Half Marathon -- that's 13.1 miles. It's going to be an amazing race! Paul Tergot of Kenya is running -- he won the New York Marathon last year.

Catherine Ndereba, another amazing Kenyan and Olympic Silver Medalist, will also be running.

Prize for top female is $10,000. Catherine will probably beat me because she's wicked fast and I'm kind of fat and out of shape. But that's not stopping me! I am dedicating myself these next two weeks to raise $5,000 for the "Raising Malawi" project. On 8/27/06 I will make a donation to help the orphans in Malawi, Africa who live in extreme poverty.

PLEASE JOIN ME IN THIS RACE!

Make a donation to: www.raisingmalawi.org (please let me know amount so I can count it against my goal). Or, make checks out to "Raising Malawi".

What is the Millennium Villages Project: Raising Malawi?

It's a practical plan to end extreme poverty in one of the poorest villages in the world. The funds I am raising are going to the village of Gumulira, where malaria, HIV/AIDs, high infant mortality and hunger are all part of the lives of the 5,000 people who live there. Using simple solutions like bed nets, inexpensive medicines, seeds and fertilizer, the people of this village will soon be on the road to self-sustained growth. (www.raisingmalawi.org)

My new personal hero Jeffrey Sachs endorces this effort -- it's his brainchild, afterall.

www.raisingmalawi.org is working again.

I just made the first $5,000 donation!

Which I dedicate to Martin and Dougie (see first Blog entry).

I was first introduced to Jeffrey Sachs by ...well, technically the LA Kabbalah Center, but more thoroughly by Bono in the foreword of "The End of Poverty." I'll type the first paragraph....just to keep a log of how many people think Jeff Sachs is a rock star...and, if I keep looking, I'm sure I'll find a link to Kevin Bacon.

Bono writes:

Two men asleep beside each other on a long journey into Africa, literally and thankfully above the thunderclouds. One is fairly clean shaven, papers strewn around him. Matte black suit, eyes slightly hollowed from no sleep, thoughts too big even for his big head. The other is a more bohemian mess. Unshaven, unkempt, he can't just have been up for days, his boyish face says years. An advertisement for why air miles can be bad for your health. When he wakes, an air hostess asks for his autograph. Confused and amused, he points to the geek in the black suit lying among the papers. That's me. Let me introduce myself. My name is Bono and I am the rock star student. The man with me is Jeffrey D. Sachs, the great economist, and for a few years now my professor. In time, his autograph will be worth a lot more than mine.

In this week's issue of Time Magazine, there's an article, Madonna Finds A Cause.(Time, August 14, 2006)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1223372,00.html

Alas, she's Raising Malawai too!!

The article says Madonna has pledged to raise $3 million for programs to help (mostly) orphans there. She has formed a partnership with -- who else? -- economic guru, Jeffrey Sachs to provide $1.5 million for one of his millenium villages -- namely, the village of Gumulira outside the capital Lilongwe.

A while ago, I know she donated $100,000 to build the orphan care center there, which I learned in my conversation with Philip van den Bossche at the Kabbalah Center in LA. I thought $100K was generous, but a little low for Madonna. So, this announcement really makes sense.

What really piqued my interest is that the money won't all be coming from her pocket. Madonna says, "My first thing was I'm going to call people who I know have money and I'm going to call people who I know want to make a difference in the world." The first 10 phone calls she made "came out all very positively" as she puts it. "I know it's going to be expensive, but I'm not worried about raising the money because my whole thing is, I'll back it up. I like to go to people and say, 'I'll put in what you put in. So there's a feeling of camaraderie."

I stink at one:one fundraising. I wonder who she called....I wonder what she said. People have to be really moved to reach deep in their pockets. I hope we hear more about the donors and their motivation (other than being Madonna's friend).

Looks like there's another documentary in the making...Jeffrey Sachs will accompany her to Malawi in October.

I'm going to Malawi for 2-3 weeks sometime between January and March 2007 to do some volunteer work. I'm so excited to help....Hopefully, a lot of positive change will have happened before then.

So, is this a big publicity stunt, as some might suspect. "Will the people buy the mistress of reinvention as a philanthropist?"

Who cares? Seriously! The people in this village have no electricity or piped water! They only know of Madonna as the woman building the center for their children. The head of the village said, "The orphanage project is about serving humanity. It will mean so much to us. We can only ask God to bless this person for her kindness."

That's enough for me!

OMG! This is not the MTV I grew up with! How old am I? I think this is so great. Evidently, MTV has a sub-brand called thinkMTV that helps educate youth, it would seem, on major world issues. They have a series called Diary where one episode features Angelina Jolie and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs in Africa on May 29-30, 2005. It's available in its entirety on MTV Overdrive.

PLEASE WATCH THIS AMAZING VIDEO DIARY! This is what I'm throwing my life at in Malawi. This video diary shows how the Millennium Villages plan is working! It really brings to life all the simple, fixable issues Sachs talks about in his book.
http://www.mtv.com/thinkmtv/global/diary/angelina_jolie/


Here's the summary from the thinkMTV web page:

Spending two long days in Sauri, Sachs exposes Jolie to every corner of village life to reveal his vision for ending extreme poverty by 2015. In a small hut, he demonstrates how a simple $10.00 bed net keeps families safe from Malaria, a disease that kills over three million people every year. In an open field, Jolie learns how basic instruction in proper farming techniques and fertilizer use can produce enough food to keep villagers alive on land that has failed to yield sustainable crops for generations. And, in a moving sequence featuring the town's young people, Jolie discovers how free school lunches are giving children a reason to come to class and learn - and that one computer is connecting this tiny village to the rest of the world.

I registered for the New York half marathon on August 27, 2006. I'm not at all trained for it, but we had a glorious, perfect day in the city today and I ran 6 miles, no problem. I think I'll do OK.

So, I'm thinking I could use this event to somehow raise money for my charity. I need an idea to raise $5,000. I've never done an email blast to my family and friends...maybe I'll go that route? I don't know. It feels small....do I have enough friends? There's got to be something.....

Just now, I bought 10 One Campaign bracelets from One.org. That's such a smart campaign. They don't want your money. It's more about making us aware of the poverty crisis in the world and inspiring us to be the voice that keeps our leaders focused on their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (which we're not doing).

Basically, less than 1% of the federal budget is earmarked for fighting AIDS and poverty around the world. Surveys show Americans think it's more like 15%. The One Campaign aims to get America to commit an extra 1% of our budget. Not much for us, but it translates into something like 10 million children who won't become AIDS orphans...and 6.5 million who won't die before they turn 5 because they don't have clean water or can't afford vaccines.

I'm grateful for that campaign, because before it launched I was pretty tuned-out and clueless.

I will wear the bracelet for the race, for sure. Still, there's got to be a way to do something big to raise money around that event.....

A year and a half ago, I was training for the New Orleans marathon (2/27/05). I was on my way to Central Park. It was cold and it started to rain. I dropped in at Ann Taylor on Madison Ave to buy a baseball hat (which they don't sell. I had to get it at the zoo). The security guard, a guy from Africa, noticed my jacket: New York Marathon. I told him I ran it in 2003 as a fluke -- My friend Bonnie suggested a bunch of us put our names in the lottery and I was the only one who got in. I lost touch with Bonnie, but I picked up a new hobby. Now, I wanted do another one and improve my time.

I wish I could remember the guard's name. It started with M, I think. M was unforgettable...he talked about coming to this country two years earlier and training for the marathon. He talked about waking up at the crack of dawn every day...choosing highly unrunnable courses and pushing himself hard to sprint up hills...hours and hours a day. Totally ruthless stuff. He had never run a marathon before, he wasn't even a runner, so he needed to really buckle down. The way he saw it, as long as his heart was working and he could feel it beating -- even if it was banging out of his chest, that meant he could still keep pushing with all his might. He said to me, "when my heart stops, I'll stop." He ran his first (and only) marathon in just under 3 hours.

I was very impressed and inspired, but sheesh, how intense! I asked him what motivated him to train so hard.

He said, he really needed the money.

I said, you were training to win?!

He said, yes. And he said it very matter-of-factly, like, 'why else would I be doing it?'

I loved him with every fiber of my being.

Then I went to the zoo and bought my hat and tried to sprint up that slow incline by the stone black cougar in Central Park...I felt my heart beating hard....and then I started to walk.

M had something I greatly desired but hadn't fully developed yet...something around "clarity of possibility".

That's what's stirring in me, now. If I'm going to meet my 2006 goal, I should plan to raise $5,000 in the next two weeks around this event.

I'm an Aquarius. I'll think of something.

In his book, Jeffrey Sachs explains that Africa's problems "are especially difficult but still solvable with practical and proven technologies. Diseases can be controlled, crop yields can be sharply increased, and basic infrastructure such as paved roads and electricity can be extended to the villages.

A combination of investments well attuned to local needs and conditions can enable African economies to break out of the poverty trap. These interventions need to be applied systematically, diligently, and jointly, since they strongly reinforce one another. With focused attention by African countries and the international community, Africa could soon have its own Green Revolution and achieve a take-off in rural-led growth, thereby sparing the coming generation of Africans the continued miseries of drought-induced famine."(pg 208)

He lays out 8 goals to achieve sustainable development for the world's poorest people. These are the Millennium Development Goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

-Halve, btwn 1999 and 2015, the proportion of people who's income is less than one dollar per day.
-Halve, btwn 1999 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

2. Achieve universal, primary education

Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015.

4. Reduce child mortality

Reduce by two thirds, btwn 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

5. Improve maternal health

Reduce by three quarters, btwn 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

-Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
-Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

-Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources
-Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
-By 2020 to have achieved a significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

8. Develop a global partnership for development

(Lots of points under this one, including predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system....tariff- and quota-free access for least developed countries' exports...addressing special needs of landlocked countries and small island developing states...help developing countries deal with debt problems/make debt sustainable in the long term...cooperate with developing countries toward decent and productive work for youth...cooperate with pharmaceutical companies to provide access to affordable, essential drugs...cooperate with private sector to make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

I have a mosquito story, which I shared with my friend Nicole, who I call "Mango", a few years ago when we were in Thailand. BTW, That's Mango in front, then me, then Ananya, who's name means "sun god", I think. Although once a girl at school thought his name was pronounced, "An Onion", a story Ananya likes to tell. Here, we're on a boat between Thailand, Burma and Laos, which Mango & Ananya said was "fake Laos" because we didn't go far enough into the village to need our passports. I insisted they were both insane.

So here's my mosquito story. I was in 3rd grade at Incarnation, a small Catholic school in Alsip, IL. We were in Reading class. My friend Michelle was reading quickly, to get through her section when she came across the word "mosquito". She pronounced it, "mos-qweet-o", obviously by mistake and she was very embarrassed, because she turned red when the teacher corrected her. I found it very amusing, and kept saying it over and over, louder and louder, "Mos-QWEE-tow". Something went wrong with my brain. I couldn't stop. I finally got sent into the hall.

In the hall, I saw Sister Marcele coming. She was big and scary. So I stood on my chair and pretended to fix the artwork we had taped on the window, as if this was my assignment. She gave me the evil eye, but I just smiled and continued straightening the art. She never asked. I felt smart for faking her out.

Since the day I shared this story with Mango, she has taken to calling me "Sqweet".

That's my whole story. But, what I didn't realize back then was that MosQWEETos are very very dangerous.

In "The End of Poverty", Jeffrey Sachs explains that malaria is transmitted when a female anopheles mosquito takes a blood meal from somebody already infected with malaria. After being ingested by the mosquito, the parasite finds its way to the mosquito's gut. There it undergoes a life-cycle transformation, after which the parasite migrates back to the mosquito's salvary glands, where it can be injected into another victim.

The life-cycle change, called sporogony, takes about two weeks, roughly the life span of the mosquito itself. If the mosquito dies before sporogony is completed, the mosquito never becomes infective.

Transmitting malaria requires two consecutive human bites: the first for the mosquito to ingest the parasite, the second for the mosquito to infect another person.

No children need to die, and none will if they have access to all of the modern tools of disease prevention and treatment. (He's talking about common household insecticides and mosquito nets!!) Yet malaria sets the perfect trap: it impoverishes a country, making it too expensive to prevent and treat the disease. Thus malaria continues and poverty deepens in a truly vicious cycle.

Fast Facts: The Faces of Poverty (From www.unmillenniumproject.org)

Following are basic facts outlining the roots and manifestations of the poverty affecting more than one third of our world.


Health

* Every year, 6 million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

* More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

* Everyday HIV/AIDS kills 6,000 people and another 8,200 people are infected with this deadly virus.

* Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria - more than one million child deaths a year.

* Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria. Approximately three million people die as a result.

* TB is the leading AIDS-related killer and in some parts of Africa, 75 percent of people with HIV also have TB.


Hunger

* More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day...300 million are children.

* Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency.

* Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority are children under the age of 5.


Water

* More than 2.6 billion people-over 40 per cent of the world's population-do not have basic sanitation, and more than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water.

* Four out of every ten people in the world don't have access even to a simple latrine.

* Five million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne diseases.


Agriculture

* In 1960, Africa was a net exporter of food; today the continent imports one-third of its grain.

* More than 40 percent of Africans do not even have the ability to obtain sufficient food on a day-to-day basis.

* Declining soil fertility, land degradation, and the AIDS pandemic have led to a 23 percent decrease in food production per capita in the last 25 years even though population has increased dramatically.

* For the African farmer, conventional fertilizers cost two to six times more than the world market price.


The devastating effect of poverty on women

* Above 80 percent of farmers in Africa are women.

* More than 40 percent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education.

* If a girl is educated for six years or more, as an adult her prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth survival rates, will dramatically and consistently improve.

* Educated mothers immunize their children 50 percent more often than mothers who are not educated.

* AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have even some schooling.

* The children of a woman with five years of primary school education have a survival rate 40 percent higher than children of women with no education.

* A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy. This compares with a 1 in 3,700 risk for a woman from North America.

* Every minute, a woman somewhere dies in pregnancy or childbirth. This adds up to 1,400 women dying each day-an estimated 529,000 each year-from pregnancy-related causes.

* Almost half of births in developing countries take place without the help of a skilled birth attendant.

My boyfriend David is a highflautin agency guy, so he travels a ton. He spends a lot of time in Seoul, Korea. He's there now. Anyway, end of June he flew me out to LA to be with him for a few days -- hang out at the pool while he worked; see if I could make a mini-vacation out of it.

I was trying to figure out what to do to gain some momentum on my new fundraising adventure, so I looked up the Kabbalah Center in LA. Turns out, we were staying within walking distance in Beverly Hills. So, I called and made an appointment to see Philippe Van Den Bossche, Director of Development and go-to-guy for Raising Malawi.

We met the next morning (6/28/06) at 8 a.m. I'm not sure who I was expecting, but it wasn't this guy. He's sort of Wall Street, all suited up with slicked-backed hair. I liked him. He's up to something. He talks fast. He had to take care of something before we could start, which involved texting and faxing and calling who knows who. He apologized for the delay and asked what he could do for me.

I shared my goal to raise $25K for Raising Malawi and that I was there to pick his brain and see if he had any suggestions to help me get started. He has loads of experience in this area and shared really good advice. One suggestion was to have high stakes -- ask able donors for big donations, and if they say no, move on. I remember that nugget most. It was so straight, simple, obvious, blunt. You can see the commitment in his eyes. We don't have time to help everyone be moved by this cause. People are dying in droves. You either see it or you don't. (I'm editorializing here, but this is my takeaway). Ask, move. Ask, move. We have a job to do.

He also told me that Jeffrey Sachs, author of "The End of Poverty" is signed on and backing the Raising Malawi project. Jeffrey Sachs is special advisor to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millenium Development Goals. He heads up The Millennium Project, which was commissioned in 2002 to develop a concrete action plan for the world to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people. He is renowned for his work advising economies in crisis. Time magazine called him one of the world's 100 most influential people.

I left the Kabbalah Center and walked straight to Borders and bought Sachs' book. I am amazed at how little I knew about extreme poverty, the economic crises around the world and the US' role and commitment (and sometimes lack thereof) to help.

What is the Millennium Project? www.unmillenniumproject.org

I've been studying Kabbalah for about a year. The New York Kabbalah Center is at 48th and 3rd, right across the street from Grey, where I worked. They have a banner in front for free intros on Monday and Thursday nights. It always looked so pretty inside (candles, flowers, books, etc.), I decided to drop in for a free lecture to see what it was all about.

When I got off the elevator to the third floor, I worked my way to the front of the room. I was surprised to find my old friend Cephora sitting at one of the tables. I always liked Cephora. She's a fast-talking French woman who has big dreams and total conviction to realize them. We met a few years back when we were introduction leaders at Landmark. We didn't keep in touch, but seeing each other that night, we agreed there are no coincidences and we both signed up for "Power of Kabbalah 1". It's a 10-week course to introduce a 4,000 year old wisdom. The course was very simple, but very smart.

In a nutshell: The source of chaos in the world is caused by "the desire to receive for self alone". If you want to help make the world a better place, start with yourself. Learn to restrict your ego nature (wanting only for me) and become a being of sharing.

During one of our Kabbalah classes, the teacher lectured on tithing. I've heard this lecture a million times before in my church-going days as a kid. They taught us to “tithe” that is, give 10% of our income to the needy or the church -- and then they'd pass around the collection basket. It felt like a scam. I couldn't believe the Bible actually said "10%". What's the point of that?

Well, I finally got an answer that makes some sense to me. In Kabbalah, they explained that you give away 10% to "protect" the other 90%. It's based on the fundamental laws of energy....and the dynamic between providing and receiving. I love that.

And then I did the math.

Sure, I give. But I don't give 10%. It feels like too damn much.

So here I am, a big believer in a reciprocal Universe -- what you throw comes back to you, oftentimes bigger. But I'm not whipping the boomerang.

That's part of my motivation to raise $25,ooo for charity. Not because I think I'll make a quarter of a million dollars salary if I do (even though I realize that could be an outcome). I'm doing it for three reasons:

1. To make a real difference
2. To test my faith in the boomerang effect (operate from a place of abundance vs. scarcity)
3. To elevate my own consciouness -- become a being of sharing

I believe my heart will grow a lot after I do this. But this is where my consciousness is today.

I searched long and hard for the right charity. I really wanted to do something to make a difference with kids. To help them defeat victim consciousness and see possibilty in the glimmest of circumstance. I wanted the neediest of the needy. All the while, right under my nose in a pamphet at the Kabbalah Center, was this effort in Sub-Saharan Africa to help orphans and people struggling to live in conditions of extreme poverty. The project is called, Raising Malawi.

www.raisingmalawi.org