who doesn't love TOMS?

I'm thinking I'll be in the market for a new pair of TOMS soon, so I decided to browse the site a bit tonight. I think my favorite new style is the Denim Stripe Women's Classic:

I thought I was sold on this style, until I saw this customer review....

Then there was no doubt in my mind.

Who doesn't love TOMS? Thanks, Ann. I will be taking your word for it. :)
 

Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong

• "If we could move charitable giving from 2% of GDP up just one step to 3% by investing in growth, that would be $150 billion in contribution." [compared to current $60 billion toward health & human services]
• "Next time you're looking at a charity, don't ask about the rate of overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams - their Apple, Google, Amazon scale dreams."
• "Who cares what the overhead is as long as these problems are getting solved." 
• "You wanna make $50 million selling violent video games to kids and we will put you on the front page of Wired Magazine, but you wanna make half a million dollars trying to cure kids of malaria and you're considered a parasite yourself. 
• "People are yearning to measure the full distance of their potential on behalf of the causes they about about deeply, but they have to be asked."
• "If we tell the consumer brands you may advertise all the benefits of your product but we tell charities you cannot advertise all the good that you do, where do you think the consumer dollars are going to flow?"

overwhelmed, depressed, enraged, empowered

It's been a while! Life has been a little crazy lately - good crazy, bad crazy, crazy crazy, and everything in between.

Part [err, most?] of the "craziness" was being SO wrapped up in the final plans and, ultimately, carrying out the Alternative Spring Break to San Francisco that I'd been planning since September. It's now been a few days since I've been back in Oregon, but I am still just so blown away by the experience that I really can't find words to describe it - albeit the title of this post may be the best description I've come up with so far.

I do know that I can't begin to describe the experience without first giving credit to the students that came on the trip. They were all such rock stars. For several of them, it had been their first time volunteering anywhere. Many have never had the opportunity to leave the *Corvallis bubble* and explore new ways of life different than their own. And I'm not just calling them "rock stars" to sound cool [which, I know, I do], they literally rocked it. This was one of the most challenging weeks for myself, and I've been through quite a lot of volunteer experiences. We all learned so much from the trip - from one another, the people we met, the things we saw - and the students are so excited to be bringing back what they learned in San Francisco to attack the issue of hunger & homelessness in Oregon and Corvallis. I can't be more proud of them, seriously.

Here is a pic of them [minus Jane!] holding their Sevenly stickers I gave them on our last day of service [and of course a nod to Sevenly's impressive social media presence]:

[Justin, Eden, Sergio, Virginia, Will, Susan, Lindsay]

  

This trip would not have been the same without any of them. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have met each one.

During the week, we volunteered with 8 different organizations in SF focusing on hunger & homelessness. I wish I could write about my experiences with them all, but I think just this post alone is going to be long enough.

One organization that has stuck with me is St. Anthony's Foundation. They invited us to attend a 5-hour program they call "Justice Education Day." Within that block of time, we got an extremely informative layout of poverty in the city (specifically the Tenderloin District, which is where St. Anthony's is located and where our group stayed), helped organize clothing donations for their Free Clothing Store, ate lunch with the guests of their dining room, and listened to the story of a recovering addict participating in their drug rehab program. It certainly was a heavy day, but one that I don't want to soon forget.

During lunch, I met a man that challenged me to think of myself outside of my skin more than I've ever been challenged to before. If you are reading this, then you are probably well aware that I plan to continue to work in the social services/non-profit sector. My AmeriCorps experience has given me so much valuable CONFIDENCE that I needed for this area of work, so I went into this lunch experience thinking it'd be no problem at all. Really, I was just there for a source of support for my students...

Boy, was I wrong.