Hawkwing
In South Dakota the #Cheyenne_River_Sioux reservation has the statistics of a third world nation. 90% unemployment rate; average life expectancy of 48 yrs old. Only 30% of the children graduate high school. Some of the schools two years ago had no textbooks.
The #Lakota people have the wealth of their culture, but their lives are unraveling because of the extreme poverty. Hawkwing, Rochelle’s nonprofit seeks to keep the wealth of the Lakota culture alive and address the severe poverty. And by keeping the culture alive, we will benefit because as a society many of us have the wealth of material things, but we have forgotten how to live in balance with our Mother Earth.
Rochelle was named #CNN_Top_Ten_Hero for her honoring of the Native American community, helping the people.
Since 1998 she has been running #Hawkwing, a nonprofit that collects donations for the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. She has collected and delivered $9 million worth of goods and services to the Lakota people in the past 17 years. They have a food pantry, medical and dental clinics, they support a greenhouse and organic gardens, and help every summer in repairing homes.
The women at St. James church in Glastonbury, CT work all year knitting scarves, gloves, and blankets which are donated to Hawkwing.
See more: http://www.wfsb.com/…/ct-woman-named-among-top-10-cnn-heroes
Hawkwing website: http://www.hawkwing.org/#!what-we-do/cj7s
We are all one human family
Can you image being 18 yrs old and traveling the world? 20,000 miles into your trip you come across a little 6 yr old girl who is working breaking up rocks to earn money to feed her family. She looks at you and says, “Hello Sister”. What would you do?
#Maggie_Doyne helped Hima go to school by paying for her tuition, uniform and books. But if you touch the life of one child, what happens next? You see another one and another one.
So what then? Well if you are Maggie, you have your parents send you your life savings of $5,000 (all of your babysitting money) and you buy some land and build Kopila Valley Children’s Home. She has 50 children ages ranging from 8 months to 16 yrs.
Maggie, now 28 yrs old believes that we are all one human family. So she doesn’t just come in and say here is what we are going to do – like she is the expert for what they need. Instead she has formed a community and “we” plan what is needed next.
So she went beyond that Children’s Home to build a school, with the children getting nutritious meals, healthcare and being given a firm foundation for their future. There are now 350 children attending the school. The need is much greater, with over 1,000 applicants each year.
The community also has a Health Clinic and Women’s Center and they are now building a high school. They have a vocational school in planning stages too.
Maggie has been named a #Top_10_CNN_Hero – see her story here:
http://edition.cnn.com/…/…/living/cnnheroes-doyne/index.html
Her website Blinknow: http://www.blinknow.org/our-story
Guitars Over Guns
Most of the hero’s that we talk about here at LemonadeMakers are the those everyday men and women that step outside of the comfort of their own lives to make a positive difference in the world. Chad Bernstein is one of those #LemonadeMakers trying to make a positive difference in the world.
On Thursday October 8, Anderson Cooper & the New Day team reveal the #Top_10_CNN_Heroes of 2015. One of those hero’s being considered for the Top 10 is Chad Bernstein. He is trying to help kids in Miami leave behind the #gun_violence through his nonprofit, Guitars Over Guns.
There are also those among us leading ordinary lives, but who have the superman cape well hidden beneath the everyday clothes they wear. These hero’s are extraordinary because they display the extreme act of generosity, in that they may in fact give up their life for a stranger.
Today I would like to talk about those everyday people who found himself in a harrowing situation and stepped up to face a possibility of death.
#Chris_Mintz is one of those kinds of hero’s. When everyone was running away from the gunman at the Oregon college he attended, he turned around and rushed back into the path of the gunman to try to save others lives. He ran back into the library, pulling alarms and urging people to safety. He tried to prevent the gunman from getting into the classroom he was in and was shot several times through the door. He then tried to reason to someone who was beyond reason, telling him “today is my son’s birthday” and the gunman responded back by shooting him at least two more times. In total he had seven gunshot wounds.
We honor those that chose a profession in which they do heroic things as part of their job. Firefighters who rush into burning buildings to rescue those inside. Police men who risk their lives chasing down armed criminals to put them in jail. Soldiers in war. Rescue workers who dig through the rubble of an earthquake or a bombed building to find those that still live. These men and women train to save others lives.
What Chris showed us, is that we all have the cape hidden inside of our ordinary clothes. And sometimes, life brings us the opportunity to spring into action. Most of us will never face a gunman down like Chris, but we are given everyday opportunities to expose the superman cape and leap a tall building to help someone in need.
See more: https://www.weeklystandard.com/…/heroes-hidden-among-us_104…