Gordon C McCormick

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip.

You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.





1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor an d actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.





How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields.

But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.





Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:



1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.


Easier?


The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with themost credentials, the most money, or the most awards.

They are the ones that care.


Pass this on to those people who have made a difference in your life.

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.

It's already tomorrow in Australia."

(Charles Schultz)

Notes From The Road With Sen. Frist In Sri Lanka

by Senior Frist Aide, Bob Stevenson
posted January 6, 2005

“They then went to Sarvodaya – a charitable organization with some 80 centers throughout Sri Lanka where they care for orphans, provide relief, food and clothing, and other community services. They met with Dr A.T. Ariyaratne, founder and head of Sarvodaya.

At Sarvodaya they presented cases of Pedialyte, which helps prevent dehydration while suppling needed nutrients and electrolytes in infants and young people. The Pedialyte was donated by Abbott Laboratories it was shipped to Sri Lanka free of charge by Fed Ex. Both senators thanked the companies involved and said it was a perfect example of government, the private sector, and non-government organizations working together.

At Sarvodaya, Frist announced that his charitable organization “World of Hope” pledged $25,000 to the organization.”

It is very nice to see that the man handing out billions of US Taxpayer dollars knows that where to put his own money so that it will really make a difference

Go to http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_60692.asp

Getting a clear sense of the enormity of the tsunami

This web site is a series of 14 pairs of sattelite close up photos of areas where the Tsunami struck.  It is designed so that you can togle from one to the other to see the impact on urban and rural environments.

See:

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html

Post a comment here or send me an email if you thought this was interesting.

If you want to contribute to the solution click

http://www.sarvodaya.org/

Sarvodaya, USA Tsanumi Relief

This is the organization in Sri Lanka that I have been working with for more than 20 years.  It is a strong well managed local grass roots organization with a presence in more than 10,000 villages in Sri Lamka.  They have organized an extraordinary Tsnaumi Relief effort

I have been Chairman of Sarvodaya, USA the US affiliate (501c3) for more than 5 years.

I am delighted to see that GOOGLE and APPLE are sending people to Sarvodaya from their home pages. See The bottom of this page.

Any contribution you would like to make would be much appreciated http://www.sarvodaya.org/.

Gordon McCormick

	Over 30,000 dead 1.5 Million homeless We need your support

Check Rs 1,000,000 donation from New Zealand Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne would like to thank the United Sri Lanka Association of New Zealand for their generous donation of Rs. 1,000,000 (10,000 USD). From the USLA: “Sri Lankans of all ethnic and religious groups and the wider NZ community have generously contributed to this fund and have identified your organization to be the best recipient of this contribution at this hour of need. It is their desire that your organization make use of these funds for medicine, water, and sanitation needs for the Tsunami affected people in all four corners of our beloved country without any discrimination." (read more) Suwasetha - A Shelter of Health Sarvodaya has pledged to take in and provide for all children aged 11 and below who have been orphaned by the tsunami disaster. In addition Sarvodaya will care for all women and girls below the age of 19. We have already begun drafting plans to build permanent housing and school facilities... (read more) Healing Lives The Tsunami has left shockwaves of fear, anxiety, stress and confusion in the hearts and minds of the survivors. At this moment they need the help of people who will listen to their plight, share comforting words and console their grief. They also need to be reconnected to the immense spiritual resources from which they can draw energy to heal the pain and suffering and to reawaken their lives with renewed faith and hope. To meet this need Sarvodaya is mobilizing a group of 30 counsellors and meditation teachers to implement a psycho-spiritual healing program for the Tsunami survivors. A planning workshop will be held on 3rd January 2005 at the Sarvodaya Vishva Niketan International Peace Centre. blogforsrilanka.com for the latest updates!

Sarvodaya HQ The Tsunami Interactive Map

A featured charity of Apple and Google

Hope amid the horror (BBC UK Story Today)

(Many of you know that I have worked with Fonkoze in Haiti for more than 5 years - scroll down to "Poverty Reduction")

20 November, 2004 - Published 16:14 GMT

Although a UN report published this week has said that Haiti appears to be headed toward another decade of decline, experts from around the world are formulating a plan to alleviate poverty in the next ten years.

The report, "A Common Vision of Sustainable Development", describes "the desperate frailty of daily life in Haiti and projects disturbing downward trends" over the next decade.

Haiti’s interim leader Gerard Latortue, whose administration worked with the UN to compile the report, said the report sets off "alarm bells".

"Haiti cannot go at it alone. The time for action is long past due," Mr Latortue warned.

The report showed that 76% of Haitians live on less than $2 per day, while 55% live on less than $1 per day.

Haiti ranks with Afghanistan and Somalia as one of three countries in the world with the worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant.

Some 2.4 million Haitians cannot afford the minimum 2,240 daily calories recommended by the World Health Organization.

Haiti's mortality rates among women and children are among the highest in the world.

One out of every three deaths is a child, and Haiti's rate of 118 deaths per thousand live births for the period is by far the topmost in the Western Hemisphere and likely to get worse.

The ratio of women dying during childbirth has is now so poor, that it is the second cause of death for Haitian women; between 1994 and 1995, 457 out of 100,000 women died in childbirth, while from 1999 to 2000 this increased to 523 per 100,000.

The rate of HIV/AIDS in the former French colony looks set to continue spreading at an alarming rate.

The study shows that in 2003, over six percent of the population was thought to be infected a figure that could rise to 10.5% by 2015.

Poverty reduction

All is not lost for Haiti, as experts in the field of poverty reduction who have been meeting in the country this week, were formulating an ambitious plan to eliminate extreme poverty there within a decade.

Representatives from as far afield as Bangladesh and Bolivia have pledged to help the poorest country in the Americas.

Fonkoze is one of the organisations behind the project, which hopes to initially help around 10,000 people in the central region of Haiti, at an estimated cost of several million dollars.

Fonkoze already provides small amounts of low interest credit to thousands of poor Haitians.

Through it, many become economically self-sufficient, selling mangoes or other products, but many more, especially those affected by HIV, AIDS or tuberculosis, simply have no way of making a living.

Working with a rural medical care company, the new project, aims to give tailored social assistance, training and business incentives to those well enough to work.

"What we're trying to do in Haiti, is take a country of manageable size, one and a half hours from the richest country on the face of the earth and take all that we've learnt globally and put it into practice in one department in this country," said Fonkoze director Anne Hastings.

"It makes everyone want to participate because it's something they can get their hands around," she told the BBC. "We can eliminate extreme poverty in the central plateau of Haiti and after that we will move on to the rest of Haiti."

She said experts from around the world who have been visiting Haiti this week; hope the country will provide an example to others.

They know they can't stamp out poverty all together, but they hope that by working in a land where so many live in such desperate conditions, they can shatter the myth that people cannot escape from the worst forms of poverty.

Meanwhile, an aid worker from Care International has written to Newsweek magazine giving his view of the situation in Haiti.

Rick Perera is posted in Gonaives where floods caused by tropical storm Jeanne resulted in the death of more than 1,500.

"The journalists have all but left Haiti," he wrote. "The suffering caused by the floods is no longer news, and we now work far from the headlines ... How do I feel about the misery I've seen? Perhaps I have spent so much time in the third world that I'm immune to it; one develops a thick skin, if only as a defence mechanism. Otherwise you would be unable to do your job."

In his letter, the aid worker expressed sympathy for the UN troops who are working in extremely harsh conditions.

"(The troops) are doing a good job under difficult circumstances", said Perera. "They sleep in an abandoned school, work insane hours guarding aid warehouses and keeping the lid on this notoriously volatile city while we try to feed people."

Message from Joseph B. Philippe, CSSp

"Father Joseph" is the priest who married Kimerly & I on 9/20/03.
Yes we had our anniversary this week.

Reprinted from the Fonkoze newsletter released yesterday:

http://www.fonkoze.org/publications/nouvelfonkozefall2004.pdf.

Celebrating Life in the Midst of Hurricanes and Continuing Political Turmoil in Haiti As I write this today, Fonkoze has a lot to celebrate and a lot to mourn. Our dream of creating a bank that the poor can call their own has become a reality. On June 16, the Minister of Commerce approved the incorporation of Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze, S.A.(Fonkoze Financial Services, Inc. or SFF).

On August 30, the funds raised in the US were released. Everyday, SFF is increasing the numbers of its depositors who are giving it the authority to manage their funds – i.e., to lend them out to those most in need in order to support the businesses that keep their families alive. Finally, we have the financial strength – indeed mandate – to allow us to double or even triple the amount of money we are able to lend in any given year. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost five years since Anne Hastings and Gordon McCormick had their initial conversation about the possibility of Fonkoze spinning off its financial services division to establish a well-financed commercial institution that would secure survival of Fonkoze’s work on behalf of the poor long into the future. The almost 30 individuals, foundations, and religious communities who ultimately invested in the new institution showed an incredible dedication to their objective of investing in Fonkoze. Whether they made their investments in 2001 or in 2004, they did it knowing just how fragile Haiti is. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that wealthy people and even mission-oriented nonprofits will not invest in a country with little infrastructure that is torn apart by violence, by political impasse, by street gangs, by environmental disasters, by crises one after another. Our investors have turned this conventional wisdom on its head, by not only making an initial decision to invest, but by not withdrawing their investments even when the situation in Haiti worsened beyond what anyone could have predicted. They chose to stand in solidarity with Fonkoze despite the tremendous social and political problems in the country. We have a proverb in Creole, which says “Moun ki swe pou ou se pou li ou chanje chemiz.” The literal translation of this proverb is “The person who sweats for you, it’s for him you change your shirt.” What it means in practice is that a person who makes a sacrifice for you deserves the same in return.

Yes, we are “changing our shirts” for our investors because they are heroes. We are dedicating urselves to making sure that their investments bring them the social and financial returns they were seeking when they made the decision to invest. We are determined to demonstrate what they have already demonstrated – that Haiti is a country worth investing in. Despite our own share of challenges that we are working to overcome, nothing will stop us in our commitment to making both Fonkoze and Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze, S.A. lasting institutions on which the poor can rely. In the meantime, Fonkoze, the original foundation, will continue to open new branches, help build small businesses , provide basic literacy services, and develop new financial products – breaking the barriers to reaching the poorest, most rural clients in Haiti.

Haiti was recently hit by both Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne. The latter has had a devastating effect on parts of the country. Thousands are now homeless or have lost their lives. In addition, the insecurity in Haiti continues with some parts of the country still under the control of rebels or the ex-military and most recently, the passing of the deadline to disarm those illegally carrying weapons. We cannot predict what the future holds for dear Haiti, but we know that we will continue to persevere in our efforts to improve the lives of the very poor.

With renewed hope and gratitude,
Joseph B. Philippe, CSSp
Coordinator, Fonkoze and President, Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze, S.A.