gregshahade.com Blog

Bookfruits was a charity suggested by Carole Frampton in a previous post (see if you post a suggestion about a charity and do so with enough passion, there’s a decent chance that eventually we’ll throw a bunch of money at them!).

I had the pleasure of speaking to the Bookfruits executive director, Reba Elliott. We spoke for a while mostly about her life, how she ended up creating Bookfruits, what types of services and activities they offer and what her plans were for the future.

Reba is one of those people where it’s just obvious from talking to her that she’s an incredibly goodhearted person. She left her job as the director of the English department in a university, which came with a very good salary, in order to start a non-profit from scratch, work endless amounts of hours, and make absolutely no money in return.  It’s so difficult and admirable to take this leap of faith, from complete financial and professional security into the unknown. I was so happy just having spoken to her, as talking to someone with her enthusiasm for service and charity kept me exhilarated the rest of the day.

I asked her for a few short paragraphs on her program, as I figured she’d do a more accurate job explaining it than I would:

“Book Fruits’ mission is to change lives through the written word.  Having known themselves the terrific power of the written word, its ability to enrich our humanity and open doors, Book Fruits’ staff believe that people in need deserve to own this power.  Having seen first-hand that people in need know rock-bottom truths about their situations, they believe that the voices of these folks are ones we should heed.

In keeping with these two principles, Book Fruits harnesses the written word to improve communities bottom-up and top-down.  Book Fruits performs direct service in its writing workshops. In the near future,  Book Fruits will perform policy advocacy through a new website which will connect decision-makers with personal narratives from survivors of the toughest problems facing our society.

Book Fruits’ executive director, Reba Elliott, left a great job as a university Advisor to Student Media (a position equivalent to an Associate Director) to found the organization.  This involved a 100% pay cut, and was completely worth it.”

Also I asked for some specific examples of what they do:

”

• This fall, we’ll be leading 13 weekly writing workshops.  We’ll be working with kids as young as 3 and as old as 16.  We’re in schools, after-school programs, and a shelter for survivors of domestic violence.
• The story of one child in our workshops is illustrative of what we do.  D. is a young man in our workshops (we’ll keep his identity to ourselves, because he is a minor).  D. lives in a public housing tower in an area known for its drug violence.  Young men selling drugs are posted outside the door to the tower, and kids without their parents roam its halls for hours.   Poverty, humiliation, and the need to “represent” are the forces at work in D.’s home.  This has taken its toll on D.  When we first met him, D. was pushing away anyone who got too close.   He fought and, although he is extremely bright, was failing his classes.  But a year in our workshops has wrought a change in D.’s spirit.  He runs to our writing group every week, ready to tell his stories.  He thrills in the close relationship with our volunteers and in the recognition, finally, of his smarts.  In fact, this young man was among the few students chosen for participation in Words Alive, our annual public reading and young author signing.”

What it comes down to is that you’ve got a bunch of people volunteering their time to touch the lives of children. I don’t think it really even matters so much what the exact plan and strategy is of an organization, as long as there are good people who want to help those who could use a bit of helping, then I’m all for it. Also when the sacrifices being made are as drastic as the one that Reba Elliott made, then you really know that she was born to make other people’s lives better. How many of us can imagine quitting our jobs cold turkey to create an organization from scratch, without even expecting to make any money from it? I’m happy to do what I can to help her and other people like her in the coming months, and I hope that you’ll join me.

Below are directions on how to donate/help:
“If people are interested in donating, it’s probably easiest to do so online.  Donations are tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas.  To make a tax-deductible donation online, visit www.fracturedatlas.org/donate and choose Book Fruits as the sponsored project.  To make a donation by check, make the check out to Fractured Atlas and send it to Book Fruits at P.O. Box 11477, Washington, DC 20008.

We also LOVE donations of service.  One thing we have a really, really big need for right now is a new logo.  We’re changing our name to better reflect the two halves of what we do.  Our new name will be Lifting Voices.  We’re redesigning our website, and we’ll need a new logo to complement our new name.  If you know anyone who is a graphic designer, this would really help.  I’ve put up an ad on Idealist and Craigslist, but I haven’t gotten any bites yet.  And our new website is coming out during September!  So this is kind of a small crisis.”.

I think we’ll do really well this time around, as I talked to a bunch of people who say they will give a bit. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I’d love it if you shared your donations in the comments section. I will be starting things off with a $900 donation. Thanks everyone for reading and to anyone who helps. Any amount is greatly appreciated!

In politics you always hear about flip-floppers, about how important it is to have a consistent track record on a particular subject, and to stick with your convictions. If a politician should do one thing ten years ago, and then do the opposite today, it becomes a point of attack for his opponents.

The thing is that I think the ability to change your mind is a virtue, not a black mark. Whenever I have a powerful initial thought about a subject, and later find myself thinking it over and deciding that my feelings were perhaps misguided, it makes me feel really good. Good because I know that as long as I’m willing to feel strongly about something and then feel differently at a later time it means that I’m still growing as a person. It means that I’m willing to admit that I was wrong, and there’s not much better for the soul than admitting you were wrong and actually believing it.

The inability to change one’s mind causes so many problems in the world. You start to believe in things not because logic and critical thought tells you to believe in them, but instead because these things are something that you once believed in, so therefore these beliefs must be defended. The large majority of passionate debates that you see on TV probably involve people who are stuck in this vicious circle.

Recently the Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick. For those who don’t know, Vick was implicated in and prosecuted for running an illegal dog fighting ring. He admitted to not only breeding dogs for fighting, but also for brutally murdering dogs that lost these fights. He was convicted of the charges, and was sent to prison for 18-24 months or so.

So I’m from Philadelphia, and I root for the Philadelphia teams (although I must admit I’ve become less interested in sports than I was in the past). My initial feeling was that now I can’t root for the Eagles anymore, because how can I root for a guy who did such horrible things. For those who were around me when I made these claims, they can attest to the passion behind these feelings.

After sobering down and getting past the initial shock, I realize that I believe it’s wrong of me to hold this grudge against the man. Michael did some horrible things, but one of the most beautiful things you can do is to forgive someone who has done something wrong. There is no evidence that Michael still believes that torturing and killing dogs is an acceptable behavior. Perhaps he does, maybe he’s just putting on a charade for everyone, but the truth is we don’t know that. As long as we instinctively believe the worst about someone, without extremely good cause, I think we are doing damage to our soul. Michael may not be the same Michael that he was two years ago, so why should we still treat the current Michael as though he committed those same sins? The person that we hate and chastise today may be a person that cannot imagine ever doing the horrible things that he did, and so it seems that our anger may be misguided.

We live in a society that often does a very poor job of showing forgiveness. If you get convicted of a felony, there are often extreme penalties that follow you around until the die you day. You will have trouble finding jobs, you may not be able to vote, you may not be able to live in certain areas.  Also if you later get convicted of a very minor crime, the sentences will invariably be much higher. I can’t tell you how often Susan has had to defend some guy for a crime that would normally carry a penalty of 0-12 months, but instead because he did something wrong 15 years ago (ie something nonviolent like selling drugs), he’s facing an almost certain 15 years sentence.

We all understand that dog fighting is wrong and we understand that it’s wrong to kill dogs. I think the point has been made to the world many times. I don’t think we need to constantly persecute Michael at every single football game as a reminder to everyone about how bad it is to kill puppies. When it all comes down to it, it will make us happier people to say “you know what Michael, if you say you’ve changed, I believe you and because you are a completely different person than you were when you committed those horrible acts, I’m ready to treat you just as I would any other member of society.” I think that forgiving someone is such a precious gift that in the long run it will make everyone involved happier and anytime you have a good chance to do so, it will raise your spirits to go ahead and do it.

PS- I know I expressed some strong feelings here. If you still hold a grudge against Michael Vick and don’t think he should have this job, I understand. I wasn’t trying to lecture anyone else, I was mainly writing this to speak to myself.  It’s just that in order to properly express my thoughts it’s necessary to sometimes write in a lecture-ish tone.