Giving Project

I am thrilled to do this posting.  It's certainly my longest yet and by far the one I'm most happy to do.  My friend Justin Rudd is the personification of the word giving.  His tireless efforts to improve the community in Long Beach, CA are truly inspiring.  I will be doing a posting on Justin in the next couple of days so I'll explain more about his generosity at that point.  This article will focus on Justin's most recent endeavor, The Giving Project, and its winner.

I asked Justin for a summary of that project and he sent me the following:

THE LONG BEACH GIVING PROJECT gave 15 Community Action Team (CAT) volunteers $500 each. Justin Rudd, CAT's Exec. Dir., gave them less than three weeks to give it all away. Contestant bios and rules.

INSPIRED BY OPRAH AND IDOL, Rudd's "Long Beach Giving Project" Gave Away $10,200 in 20 Days

FOR 20 DAYS leading up to Sat., May 10, Justin Rudd and his nonprofit 501c3 Community Action Team (C.A.T.) were looking to help people in need in the Long Beach area with their "LONG BEACH GIVING PROJECT."  Inspired by Oprah's "Big Give" and "Idol Gives Back," Rudd says thousands of dollars in goods and services were given locally to those who needed it most. 

NEEDS MET included school uniforms, bus tickets, meal vouchers, prom tickets, baby clothes, gas, sack lunches, Mother's Day cards, scout outfit, art supplies, rent payment, blankets, dance lessons, singing lessons, hygiene items, diapers, shoes, books, electric bill payments, office supplies & lots more.

SAMUEL LIPPKE was the contestant who did the giving best, as determined by a judges' panel made up of a few of Long Beach's finest philanthropists. Samuel received an extra $1,000 to give away.  See Samuel's bio, and all the other contestants' names/bios.

WHERE DID THE MONEY COME FROM?
Funds for the program are made possible, in part, by the successes of Rudd's Long Beach Turkey Trot and the Haute Dog Easter Parade charity events. Other funds came from local philanthropists whose wealth ranges from meager to millions.

HOW THE MONEY WAS GIVEN?
Justin Rudd and his 501c3 nonprofit Community Action Team (CAT) gave $500 to 15 of their volunteers to give away to others in the Long Beach area with a 20-day time limit. In total, $8,500 was given away by the contestants with $1,000 to the winner. In additional, checks were written to Steel Magnolias and PeacePartners, and we paid for prom tickets for a local high school student. Finally, on the finals night, each contestant was given an additional $50 to give away and the forty spectators at our judges interviews/dinner presentation were given $10 each to go and give.

I attended the presentation ceremony this past Saturday evening.  Each of the 15 contestants gave a five minute speech explaining how and to who they gave away that $500.  It was very moving to hear person after person describe their experiences and the impact they were able to make.  The judges chose my friend Samuel Lippke as the winner. 

Above is a quick pen sketch of him.  I met Samuel at Justin's birthday party not quite a year ago.  Samuel is an instantly likable, talented, funny, and genuine guy.  To meet him is to want to be his friend.  Simply put, he's a great guy.  I knew that he was a talented photographer as well as a blogger.  Please have a look at his photography site Samuel Lippke and his blog When Does This Boat Dock.  From his speech at The Given Project I learned more about his passion for helping others which he demonstrated by being one of the early responders to the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

I tried my Larry King/ Anderson Cooperish best to put together a few interview question for Samuel.  Here goes:

Samuel, can you give my readers a little background information.  Work, interests, hobbies......

Well, I grew up in North Western WA. I lived with my hippy parents in a bus in the woods, no running water, no computers, no TV, just me and the family. I had 4 siblings. I moved to Southern CA to become an Actor and to see the world. I became an assistant to one of the best photographers I've ever known and it happens to be my brother! So, I'm a photographer by profession, I shoot high end weddings all over the world. I LOVE shooting fashion and I photo journalism mixed. Someday I hope to shoot for fashion magazines and Ad campaigns. I'm really interested in world politics, the freeing of innocent people and photographing interactions between humans. Oh and I have a sunglass collection, I love watching the Lakers play and I enjoy meeting up with friends for nights on the town.  I love doing crazy things with my hair, I love music and making friends. Spontaneous travel is my hobby.

What was your involvement in the Tsunami relief effort?

 My Brother and I were in Indonesia Surfing and working at an orphanage when the Earthquake and Tsunami hit. When we (My brother Ira, Friend Scott, our translator Rolly and Myself) heard about the lack of aid and the amount of death that occurred an island over from ours, we knew we had to help! So we packed up our gear, threw together money for medical supplies and began our crazy journey to ground zero. It was a wild trip just getting there... between going to the UN for direction to eventually talking to the governor of the island and getting onto a military B52. We finally arrived to find death EVERYWHERE! it was so hard to know where to start. We were walking around thousands of dead bodies that had been laying there for 2 days. It felt hopeless. Finally after a few hours of trying to locate a place to help out at, we found a makeshift hospital and we started to restore order. Quickly each of us became medics, doctors, surgeons and after the 4th day, Scott was helping with amputations. It was a wild experience of death, fear, sadness, happiness (Seeing the peoples faces when they found our makeshift hospital), We were finally forced to leave after the 5th day. Terrorists in the area where trying to make a statement and wanted to capture us American's. The military ushered us out of the town and later that day the US. Marines showed up. It was perfect timing and we were able to I think save thousands of lives! I went home as sick as you can get while being a healthy young male... I'm positive what I got was Malaria.

Quick Note: The Hospital in Banda Aceh was destroyed, the nurses and doctors were killed and our makeshift hospital quickly became the hospitol. The final death count in Indonesia was 167,736.

As for the Giving Project, where did you direct your money?

I wanted to effect the people of Long Beach that were at a wits end. I wanted to give what I could to bring hope. To show the people I worked with that they were on their way up.

My first effort & $100 were spent bringing 90 lunches to a homeless population in Downtown Long Beach. A group of my friends helped me make sandwiches and then ride around on our bikes talking to people and handing them lunches.

Another project was helping a women in her 50's that was diagnosed with MS to go along with her dementia and brain tumor. She has recently gained 50 pounds and doesn't fit into any of her clothes I took her on a shopping spree to get the necessities so she could be comfortable in her clothes.

#3 was for a 3rd grade girl. she recently lost her grandfather, father and brother and is devastated. I met with her in the park, played basketball with her and listened to her sing. she has an amazing voice and great potential. I offered to get her singing lessons. She was thrilled!! I hope to keep up with her and her family and watch her grow as a singer.

#4 was directed towards mothers day. I called a few flower places and got the best deal possible. bought 50 flowers, then went to rite aid... tried to get a good deal on cards with no avail...I bought them anyways. then took the flowers and cards down to the Long Beach women's shelter and gave the cards and flowers to kids to give to their mothers for mothers day.

#5. I met with a women named Susie. She is homeless jobless and a mother of 2. she is struggling to get to and from job interviews due to no phone access and a car with tires that need air in them every 30 miles. So I called around and got 4 tires for $100.

I think the last one was the toughest, it took me 3 days to accomplish it.

I took the extra money from all the projects and went back to the flower store. bought as many flowers as possible (30 in total) and handed them out to random people on 2nd st.

What will you do with your $1,000?

I'm still trying to figure out how to best use the money for Long Beach. First off I am going to approach a few big businesses in the area looking to double maybe triple the amount. then offer to drop the first and last months rent on an apartment for susie and her 2 kids... IF she can get a job somewhere. I'm also planning on working with almost all of my projects. I would like to continue the friendships as well as continue to show them there are people out there that love to come alongside and help.

For those who are inspired by this, and can't imagine who wouldn't be, how would you encourage others about giving.  Where can they start?  That question is for me too.

Start small! find people around you that could use not just money, but smaller things... start by getting involved in the community, challenge yourself to give a certain amount to someone but not giving cash,checks or money orders... give first hand and be creative. plus its fun!!

Now that you've heard from Samuel, I'd like to show some of his work.  This black and white photo is one of my favorites.

I also love this photo of his friends who will marry this summer.

Here's Samuel with his trusty camera.  Too bad he's so out of shape.  Buddy you need to do a few more curls..... you're looking scrawny.  :)

Samuel recently took a trip to Cuba.  Be sure and read about his adventures on his blog.  I loved seeing the every day street scenes.

Here's Samuel with some friends he made along the way.  

As you can imagine, Samuel is spoken for.  Even though I've only spent a little time around his girlfriend, I can safely say that Audry is pure, undiluted sunshine.   
Here's a sketch I did of them with some digital shading.

Thanks Samuel and Justin for helping me out with this posting. You're both so inspiring. Happy to call you my friends.
   

Comments

[Jenny]

What an awesome posting! Your friends are so inspiring and you are as well. I completely agree with Samuel that it is simple to start small. If you look in your community, it is very easy to find volunteer work at a local shelter or as a child advocate just to name a few. Just make a difference in someone's life and it will make you feel GREAT!

[Maira]

This is so awesome!

It reminds me that there still a few good people out there.

I'm very happy for him!

[Samuel Lippke]

David, I am so honored that you would write this and sketch me!! I'm still so grateful for your kind words. Look forward to doing more in the community...it is truly rewarding! Nice work to Justin for putting all this together!

[Kate]

I love that you generously post other people's work. This was a great read.

[laurie]

this is why i love coming to your site. you mix it up with hilarity and heart. very inspiring story. thanks for putting it out there!