Good morning!

First, I want to take a quick opportunity to thank you for all of your work for the Haiti Choir Project. What a blessing it was to see all of you come together to help raise over $5000 for food, water, and shelter for the Haitian people. Be sure to check out Citizen Effect for updates on the project!

The second piece comes with the reality that we are not done. The Haitian people still need our support, especially as the rain seasons come. The tent cities will not be able to endure the harsh rains so shelter is an absolute necessity. That’s why, for the month of March, we’re coming alongside World Vision’s Haiti relief efforts. And we’re inviting you to join us. Here’s how we’re going to do it:

• For each week of March, set aside just $10. Think about your coffee budget, gas budget, and the little extras that you purchase each week.  Take a little bit out each week. Just $10. Then, on March 30th at 5PM EST, those who participate will all go to World Vision and donate the $40 we saved.

But there’s also a personal, creative touch to it that I’m absolutely thrilled about:

• Throughout this month, we’d like for all of you who join to create something. It can be a poem, a sculpture, a sketch, a digital media piece, a video…I think you get the picture. Whatever you choose to make, do it as an expression of your personal response to the Haiti earthquake. Then submit the piece (if it’s a sculpture or art piece, take a photograph for us) to Colin- our awesome online media guru- at colin@zyozy.org by March 28th. Send it with brief info on who you are, where you’re from, and the story behind your contribution.

Colin will post the pictures and pieces to the Brighter Way website to create this beautiful digital media gallery. We’re thrilled to move forward on this.  As always, if you have any questions, you can email me (Amy) at amy@zyozy.org. I love hearing from you!

It all starts March 1st! Will you join us?  You can let us know by posting this to your facebook, tweeting the hashtag #10dollarM, or blogging about your experience!

Amy X (@amycarolwolff)

Paul Polak isn’t your everyday global poverty fighter. He’s a 75-year old former psychiatrist who believes that the world’s poorest people, most of whom are farmers living on less than $2/day, are capable entrepreneurs and viable consumers. It’s a philosophy that drove him to start International Development Enterprises (IDE), a non-profit providing these $2/day farmers affordable irrigation & high-yield farming strategies. After 25 years, Dr. Polak and IDE succeeded in moving over 17 million people out of poverty. He has since turned over leadership of the organization to Al Doerkson but remains actively involved as a board member and advisor. Still driven to do more, he decided to start another non-profit venture, a for-profit venture, and to write a book, all aimed at harnessing the market to combat poverty. The non-profit, called D-Rev: Design for the Other 90%, aims to create a global “design revolution” to change the way the world’s best designers view and serve the 2.8 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. Dr. Polak outlines the principles for this design revolution in his book Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail, explaining how designers can profitably serve the world’s lowest-income consumers while simultaneously providing them a path out of poverty. His for-profit venture, called Windhorse International, will demonstrate that big business can be a part of this revolution. Poverty better watch out!

http://www.paulpolak.com/

http://twitter.com/outofpoverty

Overview of 37 new and inspiring ways to develop products ideas.

Overview of 37 innovation principles and inspiring examples for a better world.

She’s a precocious learner, TED speaker, published author and teacher of other kids. Twelve-year-old Adora Svitak talks for a few minutes about how she ended up at TED, what interests her in technology, and why she likes Twitter.

During her time on the stage at TED, Adora advocated a sort of “Kid’s Rights” sentiment, arguing that adults should take young people more seriously and be more interested in learning from kids to foster a more reciprocal relationship between age groups. She says that because kids tend to be less constrained by social norms than adults as we get older, young people can often offer a unique and perhaps more creative, out-of-the-box approach to problems.

Quotes from Adora’s TED Talk

“Age has nothing to do with irresponsibility and irrational thinking.”

“The goal is not to turn kids into your kind of adult but a better adult than you’ve been.”

“The world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas.”

“You need to create opportunities for children, trust them and expect more. kids need opportunities lead/succeed.”

“For better or worse, we kids aren’t hampered by reasons not to do things.”

“We cannot look ahead negatively we need a new generation of leaders to lead and take us in a new direction.”

“When expectations are low, trust me, we will sink to them.”

Adora Svitak (12), TED, 13 February, 2010

http://www.adorasvitak.com/
http://twitter.com/adorasv
http://www.adorasvitak.com/Blog.html

Five choirs around the US and Uganda came together to sing of a “Brighter Way” for Haiti. Share the word with everyone you know.

Voena Children’s Choir: http://voena.org

Pacoima Singers

BRIGHTER WAY
Words, music, vocals Amy Carol Wolff, bass Evan Bogunia, guitar Jonathan Gornick.

V1
To those who see the widowed
The infected and abused
To those who hear them asking for deliverance
To those who are angered
By the failed attempts at progress
And are inspired to give the forgotten their voice

C
Show them theres a brighter way
A rushing river gaining ground
Bringing life and hope abound
A brighter love,
One that reaches deep enough
To see their pain and lift them up in grace
This is purpose
For this we sing.

V2
We must join together
Hear the cries of the hopeful
Who know there is power in our passion
Committing to this calling
To be one in our mission, empowering with life

C
Show them theres a brighter way
A rushing river gaining ground
Bringing life and hope abound
A brighter love,
One that reaches deep enough
To see their pain and lift them up in grace
This is purpose
For this we sing.

V3
This is our noble battle,
Our adventure finding beauty,
In the eyes of a child, in the callused hands of poverty
We will not settle for signed paper contracts
We will move, inspiring others to believe
Show them theres a brighter way
A brighter love, oh

C
Show them theres a brighter way
A rushing river gaining ground
Bringing life and hope abound
A brighter love,
One that reaches deep enough
To see their pain and lift them up in grace
This is purpose
For this we sing.
For this we sing.
For those who see

©zyOzy Foundation, 2009

Tomorrow. Can you feel it? It’s happening tomorrow at 6PM EST. We’re releasing the Brighter Way Haiti Choir Project. A friend of mine described it as “We are the World”, but for the regular person- the every day music lover who wants the chance to be a part of something bigger. I think he nailed it on the head. My heart behind this project was, on behalf of my friend Dawn, to create a place for people to sing for Haiti- to use their gifts to bring hope and support. For the full story, check out the video here.

A few people asked how they can help, so last night, the ‘Power Tribe’ and I came up with a few ways.

1. Send this press release to local media sources or any major connections you may have! Haiti Choir Project press release [pdf]

2. Use social media to spread the message. You’ll have the freedom to post the video anywhere. Blogs, your personal websites, facebook.  The twitter hashtag for the project is #HaitiCP.

3. Old-fashioned email/phone calls! Take some time to share this with your friends and family! The more people who see it, the better chance we have to provide for the people of Haiti. It’s that simple. Here’s a draft email that you can use!

Dear friends,

Happy Valentine’s day! I’m writing to share with you a pretty beautiful response to the recent Haiti earthquake. Five choirs from across the world came together and sang “Brighter Way”, a song of hope and encouragement, in order to spread the word about the need in Haiti. The Brighter Way Haiti Choir Project is working with Citizen Effect- an online donation tool- that has partnered with CARE in their relief efforts.

I’d encourage you take 4 minutes and watch the video, donate if you can, and then pass it along to those you love and know. The more people who see this, the more we can come along side Haiti and serve them.

Thank you for joining with me in this.

All my love,

(Insert name here)

—–

Three simple ways to spread the word! Thank you! Get pumped!!

Love,

Amy x

To all those who have signed on to support the spread of the Brighter Way Haiti Choir Project,

Let’s have a quick call! If you’re free on Friday, February 12 at 5PM CST, join us for 30 minutes to discuss the plan to spread the message of this project and the song!

We’ll discuss ways for you to be involved on the social media, networking and fundraising sides of things! And we’ll gladly take your suggestions!  Come with ideas and excitement!! All are welcome!

Call-in details:

Number: (712)-775-7100

Access Code: 429712#

We’ve been tweeting some of the choir videos recently. You can find many of them on the Brighter Way Posterous. Use this as a tool to begin conversations with your network. The page tells the entire story of how this all came together!

I hope you guys feel the energy like I do! We are just days away from a finished project!

And thank you for joining with us!

Amy

We’re looking for something so simple.

So simple, that we can’t hold it in our hands or in our heads.

So we look to him. To her. To them. To there.

We look to everywhere but here.

To when. To then. But not to now.

It’s hidden just beyond our cleverness.

So we presume it’s out there.

But perhaps it’s in here.

I woke up this morning, looked at what day it was and smiled. In one week, we’ll have all of the videos to start compiling the final piece. And then it begins. We have already raised $200 for people in Haiti. That buys a lot of water, some clothing, maybe even some medical supplies. But I want for us to do so much more. It really isn’t about how much money you are able to give - it is about the lives of these orphaned children- it’s about protecting them from the traffickers, providing them with education, offering them love.

On Valentines Day, I am going to ask that you give $25. Watch the video, and then give $25. If we get 1,000 people to give $25, we give the people of Haiti $25,000. I want for us music lovers, social media gurus, and passionate writers to build a movement for the people of Haiti that says, “We will not and cannot stop fighting for you.” $25 says that. Would you be willing to join with us in this? You can give online here: http://citizeneffect.org/projects/brighterwaychoir_haitirelief/.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see this project come together. I still think about that magical week when you all helped bring in choirs, press and support. And come Valentine’s Day, we’ll need you again. We’ll need your tweets, blogs, facebook status updates, emails, phone calls, and coffee dates to spread this video! This is a call to action for people to remember. And what a sweet way for us to show support of the kids in these choirs who are using what they love to serve the people of Haiti. That’s a story worth writing.

If your choir or a choir you know is interested in submitting a video, here are the details!

Videos can be in h.264 (mov format), NTSC DVCam (mov), AVI or Mpeg 4 or Mpeg 1 and the video size should be no less then 720 x 480.

Please upload them to a jump.fm link and send the link to me at amy@zyozy.org.

Thank you for coming along side the people of Haiti.

All my love,
Amy