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Archive for May, 2012

June 15th – 3rd Annual Worldwide Day of Giving

Posted in Volunteering on May 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The Worldwide Day of Giving is fast approaching us. Once again on June 15th you can join people all around the world in a simple act of kindness. There are 3 simple ways that you can take part in this event:

1. VOLUNTEERING
You can volunteer with any organization. For those of you who are busy and can’t take off work, consider micro-volunteering on www.sparked.com. Many of the volunteer projects take 15-20 minutes. You can volunteer on your lunch break!

Day 296 $10 recipients Kyle (aka Kevin) on the left with his friend Chris. (photo: Reed)

2. GIVE A STRANGER $10
So you’re old school? You want to celebrate the Worldwide Day of Giving by paying forward like I did for 365 days. It’s easy. Find a complete stranger. Approach them and tell them that you are participating in the Worldwide Day of Giving and would like to give them $10. The only rules are that you may not know the person and you may not receive anything in return for the $10 (aside from the rush of goodness you will feel).

Ideally you will take some time to speak with the recipient, find out what they will do with the $10 as well as a little bit about who they are. If you can take a picture or video, that would be even better – we would love to have you post that here.

3. DONATE $10
Give $10 today to your favorite charity. Don’t know who to give to? You can donate through the Year of Giving website to help some of the 365 recipients I gave $10 to in 2010. Click here to make a donation.

At the end of the day, share your giving stories on the Facebook Page and then sit back and start to watch the phenomenon begin. Stories trickling in from all around the world. Imagine the different reactions and stories that we will collectively have from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Raahe, Finland to Montevideo, Uruguay!

Please pass the word around!

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Update: Willie Geist (Day 317)

Posted in Update, tagged , , , , , , on May 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One third of the year is already behind us. Mild weather in the DC area made winter merely a memory of last year. My blog posts have become intermittent at best as I spend the majority of my time on some new projects, but from time to time it is nice to give pause and revisit some of the remarkable people whose stories became woven into the Year of Giving.

Photo: Jonathan Capehart

This last weekend I ran into one of my better known $10 recipients – Willie Geist from Day 317. Saturday night had become Sunday morning and the scene at the Italian Embassy where MSNBC was hosting their White House Correspondents Dinner after party was still going strong. My friends often refer to me as their mini-celebrity friend due to my 15 seconds of Year of Giving fame, but this place was full of real celebrities – where the heck was TMZ?!? Woody Harrelson sipping on a beer by the bar as Dave Chappelle checks out the D.J. booth – or maybe he was just checking out the cute young lady spinning the tunes. Across the room stands the much-thinner-in-real-life Jimmy Kimmel, surrounded by an impressive entourage, relaxing a bit after roasting President Obama earlier in the evening at the dinner. The stunning Rosario Dawson sends a smile my way – or maybe it was intended for Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet who was standing behind me. In any event, you get the idea.

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Willie Geist talking to Jimmy Kimmel.

At some point my eyes lock on Willie chatting Jimmy Kimmel. The popular television host of MSNBC’s Way Too Early with Willie Geist and Morning Joe is pretty tall – so I spotted him pretty quickly. I waited around trying not to look like a stalker until he finished his conversation. He greeted me with his infectious grin and said that he remembered me, or at least politely pretended that he did, and we chatted for a while. I can’t really say that I know him but he seems to be a really genuine guy. He said that he’s been busy since we met. After churning out two books in six months he said he was just “lying low” for a while. I smirked a bit – the idea of being on television every day and also laying low seem to be mutually exclusive in my book. In any event, it was great to catch up with him.

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Lindsay Czarniak, me, Craig Melvin

I also ran into Today Show correspondent Craig Melvin and his wife Lindsay Czarniak who is a reporter for ESPN. Craig, a very likeable guy in addition to being a great journalist, did a story on the Year of Giving back in 2010 when he was a news anchor for NBC4 here in DC – where he met Lindsay. They married last fall and have since moved to Connecticut.

Click here to visit the original posting for my $10 encounter with Willie Geist.

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