I know what you might be thinking…Day 116?! What happened to Days 109-115? Did Reed take a break? Did he forget to tell us all that he is entitled to 2 weeks of “paid” vacation…i.e. not paying others! 🙂 Nope, that’s not the case. I am simply behind on the administrative side of my year-long experience. But don’t worry. To steal and modify a great Teddy Kennedy quote, the giving goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die.The reason that I am posting Day 116 today is that I had the honor of sharing my giving experience today with Liane Hansen and Jack Zahora of NPR. Many of you probably already know Liane as the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Jack is a NPR producer for the show. They are putting a story together for this Sunday’s program, which airs from 8am to 10am on WAMU here in DC. The show is broadcasted on more than 600 stations around the country…so check your local NPR station to see when it will be on. Later that day the story will be posted on http://www.npr.org.
It is strange to meet someone that you have heard for years but don’t really know. Liane didn’t disappoint…she was great. I’m guessing she has pretty much worked every weekend for the last 20 years…would you be willing to do that?
Anyway, so they were following me around. I was in the Chinatown neighborhood looking for a recipient and found Molly.
Molly (Photo: Reed)
Molly was walking her bike down 7th Street when I pulled her over to talk to me. She seemed like she was in a bit of a hurry at first, but probably was just more skeptical of what I was doing than anything else. It turns out that at the age of 31 Molly has returned to school to make a career change. She is studying nutrition at the University of Maryland after having a career in marketing and communications.
I asked her what she was doing today and she said that she had been studying and now was rewarding herself with a little shopping trip. “Although I should probably be studying now” she said.
She said that she was going to use the $10 to buy a couple of grande skim lattes at Starbucks. Although she decided to use the money for herself, she sounds like a pretty dedicated giver. She has volunteered her time teaching exercise classes to women in shelters, tutored children in coursework, helped out at So Others Might Eat (S.O.M.E.), helped an organization that offered tax assistance to low income individuals, etc. Pretty impressive. She also has an internship with DC Hunger http://www.dchunger.org/ whose mission it is to eliminate hunger in the District.
Liane Hansen interviewing Molly while Jack captures sound (Photo: Reed)
Molly was a terrific sport. I hope that you have the opportunity to hear our interaction on the NPR segment this Sunday!
Oh, and if anybody wants to help this aspiring nutritionist, she is in dire need of a good biochemistry tutor! Somebody help!
Year of Giving 
Congratulations on the media coverage!
Reed,
Loved the story on Weekend Edition Sunday! I hope your interview went well! Did you get the job?
Don’t know about the job yet. Will keep everyone posted for sure! Thanks for checking!
The most exciting part about this post is that I’ve stood exactly where Liane is standing. Amazing!
I just heard your interview. What a lovely idea. I sure hope you get that job (or another one if that one didn’t work out)…anyone would be lucky to have an employee with your spirit. It’s been a rough year for me, and I have to admit I’ve been pretty cynical about people lately, so it is good to hear about someone who gets out into the real world and does something nice for people for the sake of doing something for people. I hope you never stop doing random acts of kindness, with or without money, because the world just doesn’t have enough people like you in it.
I just heard about you on Weekend Edition, and clicked over! I hope your interview went well!
I caught this on the radio today and did a search for “reed blog $10” and found your blog. Great job and good luck with the job hunt!