Moving Mountains Together

I would like to clarify the mission of my campaign, because it is so much more than simply trying to raise funds.

I decided to raise $50,000 for Global Roots because I want to do everything in my power to help these children. Yes, that includes raising money, but more importantly it is about inciting the intense passion, the excitement, the feelings of responsibility that I have been blessed with in others. Because that is the greatest gift I can give to these children- other people who care about them.

There are a myriad problems in the world today, and one person can't tackle them all. There needs to be other people that are just as excited, just as motivated, and commited to a cause, even if its not the same as mine. And if I can inspire this kind of longing to impact the world in just a few people, then I will in some way be helping thousands more than if I just kept my mouth shut and went on my trip alone.

Your donation will support not just me, or the children the money is going to help, but the belief that change can happen, that we have the power to make an impact on the world. I know I must sound like a broken record, but I want you to become part of my journey; so that it is not just me, but us, moving mountains together.

Whats disturbing is how powerful we can be, if we just believe...

I know we can raise this money. I know we can change the lives of these children.

I truly believe we can move mountains, but only if we do it together...

What about you? (If you believe leave a comment saying so.)

We can do this!

Today I... Sent letters to businesses, did more thank you notes, emailed the Bishop, got my Hep A vaccine, photocopied all of the checks, and then counted all of the money and put them in an envelope ready to send to Global Roots.

Yes, you heard right, I am sending out the first of the funds to Global Roots tomorrow! (For those of you kind souls who have donated, your receipts will be in the mail soon!) The total in the check was 3849.82! We are almost a quarter of the way there!

We can do this!

My Chinese Visa

I wouldn't be able to live it down if the reason I was unable to go on my trip was due to the fact that I neglected to get a chinese visa... My mom would literally kick me out of the house. So, not yet ready to be homeless, I have my application ready, but there is just one problem. In order to get my visa, I need proof of departure, also known as plane tickets.
Now for those of you who don't know, let me fill you in on the logistics of my fundraising:
- 90% of the money raised goes towards the projects in the field (not non-profit overhead)
- 10% goes towards my trip... to the projects in the field... So, I guess you could say that 100% of the money goes to the actual projects.

Heres the deal, I have less than 7 weeks to raise $20,000. But since it takes five days to process the request for a Visa I really only have 6 weeks.

I received six hundred dollars today from just two donations, so I have no doubt that we can do this. But those donations have to come in soon! Lets do it, if for nothing else but my Chinese Visa.

Just as you would if it were your hand on the stove...

We are all taught to love and respect our fellow human beings, just as we love and respect ourselves... But there is a problem, we are our own worst critics. We know all of our faults, our insecurities, our shortcomings, and whether we acknowledge it not, we hate ourselves for them. So how are we supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves, if we do not even like who we are?

The answer will not come from beating ourselves up, and telling ourselves that we need to love ourselves, that we should love ourselves. It will not come from being disgusted at our character flaws, and punishing ourselves for our bad habits. Punishment, hate, disgust will not lead to love. Only love can lead to love. Hate will only lead to more hate.

You must have compassion for yourself, flaws, and bad habits especially. Because after all it is those parts of ourselves that we dislike, those traits that cause us to suffer that need our compassion and love the most... If you have compassion for yourself, if you let go of those standards you judge yourself by (standards that upon closer inspection are generally ungrounded and untrue) you will no longer be disappointed in yourself! You will realize that you are perfect, that in this moment, this second you are right where you should, just as you should be...

The key is to love yourself, no matter what! Only then, only after you no longer disapprove of yourself in anyway, for anything, can you truly love your neighbor as yourself... And if you have compassion, then "their" pain will become your pain, and you will react accordingly. Just as you would if it were your hand on the stove...

On the highest Tibetan plateau

The biggest mistake I made with fundraising was not starting with a plan in hand. Of course this was my bad, as I am so kindly reminded by my mother every time the phrase "I don't know what to do next" slips out of my mouth. And sadly she is right, as she always seems to be... You see, without a plan there are days like wednesday, when I woke up at 9, worked till 7 at night, and yet still felt as though I hadn't made any progress...

So from now on I will start every blog off with a list of what I have done. Here goes...

Today I... Worked on my speech, wrote thank you notes, addressed letters, found contacts, responded to emails, contacted churches, newspapers, worked on this (my blog), counted the amount of money raised this week ($2,578) and half-listened to my mothers incessant nagging (which I am very thankful for, without it, I wouldn't get anything done... Or maybe I would just enjoy it more...)

It will all be worth it in the end when I have reached my destination, standing before a group of 80 children eager to learn, on the highest Tibetan plateau.

A Simple Gesture of Faith

I'm just an eighteen year old kid, who came up with this crazy idea to raise money for an organization that I believed would do great things with it. Everyday the mailman comes and brings one or two more letters, with a check and a few words of encouragement. Big and small donations come in from people I know well, or barely know at all, but each donation comes from the heart.

The greatest gift one person can give to another is faith. Every letter I receive represents someones faith in me, in the youth, in the future. Everybody needs something to believe in and I am so fortunate, so blessed, so incredibly happy to be able to be that something for even a few people. Every single donation I get matters tremendously to me, and the children I will be going to help. I received a five dollar donation from an eleven year old today! How wonderful!... The support I am getting from people is making this whole campaign worth it, making my struggles bareable, and making my feet not hurt so much.

I will never give up my dreams of helping the world, and bettering the lives of those who suffer. To waste the gifts that people have given me- their faith, their love, their support, would be the greatest sin I could commit.

Thank you all, so much, from the bottom of my heart, whether you have donated money, prayers, or a simple gesture of faith...

Thinking about whats important...

A goal is a wonderful thing. It gives you something to work for, it allows you to push yourself past previously determined limits and achieve things you once thought impossible. But, as with all things, there is a flip side to this coin. A goal can also be a burden, a deadweight attached to the foot of your dreams. If it is too lofty, or too great, if you are unprepared, or underprepared, it can cause you great pain and suffering... It is hard to admit when you are in over your head, to acknowledge the fact that you are only human and thus have limitations. But it is only a failure if you pretend to have control, and neglect the very real, and very saddening truth that there are somethings that are outside your grasp. It is only a failure if you allow your dignity to be injured, and you forget about what is important...

-$50,000 is a lot of money, but thats not important.

-Market Days was a failure, that doesn't matter much either.

-I have less than two months to raise more money than I have ever seen in my entire life- unimportant.

-There are children suffering tremendously, who face struggles I can't even imagine. Who have never known comfort, have never experienced the love and safety that we take for granted. That's what is important. Not the goal, but the reason, the drive, the aspiritation and belief that a young kid from a small town can make a difference.

I may be turning away from the goal, but I will never turn away from the dream. I will continue to fundraise but I will forget the number, and instead spend my time and energy thinking about whats important...

My feet hurt....

A human being can only be turned down so many times before the thought of giving up becomes the only reasonable solution. Ah but the optimists in the crowd wail, "this is where heroes are born," and "the struggle will make the accomplishment of your goal so much sweeter." But they have not walked up and down main street 200 times, they have not seen people pull out a wallet full of twenties to pay for a hotdog and then deny a simple donation of a couple dollars. Sure, there are a lot of people asking for money, and there are a lot of people in need, but what drugs do you have to be on to believe that by not donating to a worthy cause you are making the situation any better. I mean seriously people!...

So....Market Days has not been a success. The past two days I have spent close to 10 hours wandering up and down main street asking, no begging for donations. From those ten hours and the myriad of people I have asked I have raised an astounding $97.17... (If you didn't catch it, my use of the word "astounding" was sarcasm.)

I am trying to raise $50,000, and yet I just broke $1,000 dollars earlier this week... Yes, I am frustrated, I am angry, and depressed, but then I remember why I am doing this. I think about the children, about their plight, and their incredible struggles. Though it is not like a movie where all of a sudden I am re-energized and excited, it does strengthen my resolve to think about how unfortunate those children are. No matter how much this fund raising stuff stinks, I know that it can't compare to the incredible struggles of the orphans I am trying to help.... We are so fortunate, so blessed, but sadly we are all so selfish...

It will get better, but right now... My feet hurt.

Here come the funds da da da da...

As of yesterday I have raised roughly $1000 dollars. Though this does not sound like much, you must understand that I am just now beginning to fundraise. I have spent a lot of time on this project over the last month, but none of that work was going directly to raising funds. But now, I have my family helping out, and the donations are finally coming in.

I will be at Market Days today (thursday), tomorrow and saturday from 2-8. I will be the guy in the purple shirt with wings on the back, it will be hard to miss me. I will be handing out flyers that explain Global Roots, it's projects, goals, and my own campaign to riase $50,000. If you would like more information about my trip or Global Roots in general you should come down, I will be more than happy to talk with you.

Who am I?

Many of you have read the article in the monitor, or heard my conversation with Doris Ballard on Coffee Chat. But too few people understand my reasoning behind my campaign to raise $50,000. So here goes, a brief overview of my journey to the organization and the cause that will surely change the rest of my life:

My name is Ben Broadbent. In June I graduated from Concord High School. Ten months before that I was beginning the long and treacherous adventure of applying to college. This is where my troubles truly began.

Many people have doubts when applying to college. They doubt themselves, their abilities, their choices for college, major and all that other future-determining nonsense. Though I did have a fair share of this doubt, it was accompanied by another, greater sense of incorrectness and dread. I envisioned my life in college, the people I would surely meet and befriend. I thought about my classes, and the volumes of knowledge that I would absorb in pursuit of a major yet decided. But instead of excitement, I felt nauseous. I wasn't completely sure why yet, or whether I was actually just sick, but it nonetheless caused me to drag my feet through the application process, putting my mother on the brink of a mental break down.

Fast forward a month or so, it's now October, the air is colder, the night sooner, my mother even closer to insanity. The thought of college still sickened me, so I decided to forget about it and concentrate on school. In my Anatomy and Physiology class we were conducting a schaible. A schaible is a student led discussion about an article, book, or any similar material that a teacher decides to assign. Our schaible was on an article about Malaria, and for me this was a very good thing. A love for science is one of the many things I took from AP Biology, and Concord High in general. But this article was different than I had expected. As intrigued as I was by the incredible immunosuppresive abilities of Plasmodium Falciporum (the most deadly strand of the malaria virus) I was even more alarmed at the statistics that the article gave. Three out of every five children in Sub-Saharan Africa die from Malaria before their fifth birthday!... What!?!? Here I am worrying about college, about my future, and there are hundreds of thousands of kids the same age as my little brother dying from a disease that can be easily combated, if only enough people cared! How selfish would I be if I spent the next four years of my privileged life bettering my future, and my life when I knew of the horrific tragedies going on in the world...

Fast forward to April, my applications have been sent out; some of the stress is gone. I am having a meeting with my guidance counselor and hysterical mother. As we are talking about my college angst the "G" word gingerly slipped from my mothers lips. Aha! I thought. A GAP year, taking the year off, using my energy, my passion, for something and someone other than myself. That’s why I felt nauseous thinking about college, I wasn't ready, true. But I also had other, very important things to do. I needed to get active...

Another month slips by and its May. I am on the internet, finally excited about my plans. At this point I have been accepted at a number of colleges and universities, all of which I declined. It felt good, I was on my way. I was writing an email to the executive director of one of the organizations (Global Roots) I was considering participating in during my GAP year. What intrigued me was how sincere the organization seemed to be about helping people. It was a young organization founded in 2001, but that excited me too. (I was reading Three Cups of Tea, so I was all about helping the young up and coming organization.) A few weeks, a number of exciting email conversations, and three gallons of coffee later, I had a mission and Bingo was its name-o.

$50,000 or bust... There will be doubters, haters, and faithless opponents, but I say anything is possible. Bigger mountains have been moved, greater obstacles overcome, and far fewer cups of coffee have been drunk…. I’m ready and I hope you are too.

For more information abotu Global Roots check out website at: www.globalroots.org