My name is Thais Helena, I'm a Brazilian laywer and mother of two boys who live in Danville, California whose strongest belief is that serving is one of the most important things we can do during our journey in this Earth. I believe that if we use
the hunger that drives us to help others, this can be our greatest source of
power.
Last year one I had the opportunity to read the story of the life and mission of Dr. Rick Hodes (http://rickhodes.org/),
an American physician who has devoted the last 20 years of his life helping the most needy children in Africa. To say the least he is a true inspiration.
He is the Medical Director of Ethiopia for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a 95-year old NGO (non-governmental organization). Over the years, he has been in charge of the health of Ethiopians immigrating to Israel. Currently, he is the senior consultant at a Catholic mission helping sick and destitute with heart disease (rheumatic and congenital), spine disease (TB and scoliosis), and cancer. He has also worked with refugees in Rwanda, Zaire, Tanzania, Somalia, and Albania.
He is an astute clinician who attends children locally and has sent thousands of them every year to have surgery performed by specialists in USA. He is an incredible adoptive father of five children and unofficial father to so many more. He is a teacher, a scholar, and most of all, a man who quietly lives his faith. He is a humanitarian.
His work is the subject of the HBO documentary “Making the Crooked Straight” as well as a new book “This is a Soul: The Mission of Rick Hodes.
Deeply touched by his story, I started to think about how I could help him, his cause,
and how I could share the value of all this with my children; with as many children as possible.
I decided to talk to the principal of my boy's school, Mrs. Pat Hansen at VistaGrande Elementary School, and in the begining of 2012 and I gave her a copy of the book. Like me, the principal was completely amazed with his mission and promptly decided to join forces to
help Dr. Hodes. I told her the main goal was to show that children in her school that they, and
the children in Africa and all the children in the world, are connected, and all of us together can and should help others. She promptly oriented her teachers to talk about Dr. Hodes to their students and we came up with the idea of a fundraiser!
In the meantime I came up with this idea of a logo - the Earth shaped into a heart, surrounded by children holding hands with the words We are all connected. A simple way of showing children how we all share this planet, and when some that are fortunate, love and help those in need, we can all stand tall. I gave the logo to the principal for our planned fundraiser, to be sponsored by the Vista Grande P.R.I.D.E (a 501c charitable organization part of Vista Grand's PTA).
I talked to some my friends, Sean Arbabi, Jaqueline Jacques and Lione McDonald, parents who also share the same passion and vision of teaching children this message of connection and how the value of helping those in need. Together we decided to create this charitable group to spread our idea among the fortunate children in our area.
Vista Grande principal (Mrs. Pat Hansen) contacted a former Vista Grande student, Jessica Oxley's family, who also embraced the idea and helped with getting in touch with Dr. Hodes in Africa. Dr. Hodes told Jessica that we could help him raising money to build a well. Jessica worked on creating a very nice educational video to introduce to kids the importance of building this well.
Our hope and goal is to raise money for Dr. Hodes to perform medical operations to help children and also to bring clean water to the children and people affected by his work.
One of our ideas is to hold fundraisers at schools - many schools hopefully, whether elementary, middle school, high school, or college. If you want to get involved and would like to hold a fundraiser at your school, contact us at: weareallconnectedgroup@gmail.com
On March 19th, our first fundraiser sponsered by Vista Grande P.R.I.D.E, with stickers and a T-Shirst with our logo, all with our message will happen at Vista Grande Elementary School at 667 Diablo Rd, Danville at 10:10 am.
A second way to raise funds is through your old cell phones - we plan to start a program to collect unused cell phones and exchange them for money to send it to Dr. Hodes. We will post a blog detailing this program in the near future.
Another idea we may implement is to collect recyclable cans from schools as another source of fundraising for the cause. We have learned this from the great example of Bottles for Poverty, a non profit organization founded by Robel Haile, a young man who visited Dr. Hodes in Africa who was touched by his work and decided to raise money to build a school in Ethiopia. For more info about Haile and his noble mission, please visit http://www.bottlesforpoverty.org/ . Regarding collecting recyclables at Vista Grande School, we will post a blog detailing this program in the near future.
This is "just" a seed, but it's a seed of a strong tree- the
tree of compassion, strength and service. Please, help us teach our children the joy of helping others and allow them to see they can make the difference, and that yes, we are all
connected!
Thais, on behalf of We Are All Connected Group
