Sunday, September 28, 2008

Wahhhhhhh.

Loads of cool stuff.  Meeting tonight was epic.  The turnout was great.  The people, super.  

I'm calling it a early night to get ready for the 7am swim club meeting.  Right now the BR swim club has two members.  Me and Jordan. Exciting.

xo,nick

Segooooooooooooooooo

We learned lots of things at sego.

First, sego is the state flower of Utah.
Second, sego isn't said like sega, its said like sea-go.
Lastly, people are good and want to help.  We made $21.  Only a little you may say? False.  That's 7 nets.  That's about 21 kiddies covered by nets.  So we are stoked.  And we met LOADS of cool people who we hope will be new friends.  So thanks Sego and especially thanks to Madeline who made this all Sego things possible.

Monday, September 8, 2008

More Friends!

So the weekly meeting grew.  We had a nice group of new friends with TONS of cool contacts that are going to help with our project.  We're hoping that we can have more people this next week.  If you are in Provo please feel free to come by at 8pm on Sunday.  341N 300E.  

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Good day,

A solid meeting was had last Saturday. While still in the beginning stages, the big reach is progressing and has huge potential; choke potential, if you will. We covered a number of topics, with a lot of time being spent discussing how we can get the word out. Bekah is making progress on finding out stipulations about on-campus activities. We would love to set up a booth or a table somewhere on campus to let people know what we are doing. Jordan, who is akaed as the professor is researching the quality of the nets that will purchased and delivered; a tough job but he knows what is up. Dylan and Jake are working on the marketing aspect of reaching students via email, sports organizations, and whiffle ball tournaments. Molly is working on legal documents with Bekah and finding all kinds of connections for donations, delivery, storage, etc. Our powers combined, under the master-mindedness of Nick and Bekah, the big reach is looking forward to a huge year.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Thoughts from MLK Jr.

Hey,

This is Nick. I thought that I'd share some thought from Martin Luther King Jr., given that this is the 45th anviersary of his famous speach and he has really influenced the amount of hope that i have in humanity to do good and overcome. These are some of the parts of speech that are epic. Enjoy!

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I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. (Oslo, 1964)

We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. (NYC, 1967)

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured. (DC, 1969)

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. (Oslo, 1969)

Thursday, July 31, 2008

the beginning.

So we're in the first little parts of getting the charity together. and we want to keep our friends updated on our progress.

Here's how this fiasco known as the Big Reach began.

I'm on a train ride in China. Somewhere between Chengdu and the Three River Gorge, a few days after that terrible earthquake. We got on the slowest train since 1827. It was terrible. No sleeper cars, only hard seats. Over crowded, hot and loud. I'm not wired correctly for sleeping in the sitting position, and hence didn't rest a wink. I don't know what i was thinking about, but all of the sudden i found myself writing a bunch of notes in my journal about how to get this project together to collect mosquito nets for malaria. i didn't know much about the disease or africa, so when i got home i did some research. Using my chinese, i got some quotes from chinese factories. So now, here i am in idaho, trying to help these people on the otherside of the world. a friend asked me to give her some advice about a npo she was working for, and while we were talking about that, i mentioned the idea.

bekah, with her trademark enthusiasm, took the idea and came up with tons of ideas i hadn't considered of how to start a charity. we decided together that we thought it'd be better to have a 501c3 (fancy talk for a Non-profit) that we could run all these different projects under. After days and days of brainstorming, we finalized on THE BIG REACH.

I talked to my friends who have tons of skills that i don't, and they were all willing to help Jordan started talking to doctors at Penn State about Malaria and its treatments. Dylan used his hawaiian/volcom/haole marketing skills to make us look better. My cousin (Kira) and her boyfriend (Rusty) are webdesigning the amazing thebigreach.org. Rachel is going to be the key to getting the funds that we need for all of this. And molly, shes the brains and legal connection that we need so bad. So you can see, we're all just using the skills we've built up to create a fuse together this force for good in the world.

Watch this blog. Its going to be the way to keep everyone posted and laughing about the ups and downs of the big reach, as well as get all the new news.

here we go!!!

nick