Get up and make it known
Never take a chance alone
I'll be there whenever
You're at a crossroads
I know it will take some time
I know it's gonna take it slow
All you gotta do is show me
Follow Your Lead, Hanson
At this point, I had the urge and passion to do something about the state of the world and especially the continent of Africa. I began to do research and found some pretty amazing things. Of course, I already knew about TOMS Shoes and their incredible one-for-one policy. I had also heard of Invisible Children in my high school Non-Western Culture class.
Invisible Children was originally started because three twenty-somethings went to Africa in search of an adventure. They found a now-23-year war and suffering in the people living there. (To learn more, invisiblechildren.com) I looked into them again and found out that they had grown as well. They had helped reduce the number of orphans that had to travel many miles every day to sleep in abandoned buildings to avoid being captured by the rebel army in Uganda. They brought U.S. government attention to the situation in Uganda and demanded that the U.S. increase their involvement. They are currently holding their second annual Schools for Schools campaign, which ends December 18th. This campaign raises money to help rebuild schools in Uganda that have been damaged or destroyed by war.
These main organizations gave me more hope but I still felt I should do more. I talked to a few friends of mine and we began brainstorming. (Thanks Dan and Laura.) We decided the most feasible thing that we could do would be to utilize the position we held at the university. So we began an organization. We did not have a name, but we had a vision. We wanted to make sure that everyone on campus had the same information that we had, and we wanted to give students something simple and feasible that they could do that was affordable and made a real change. One of the problems I really saw with working with charities was that many people are expected to throw money at the problem. This is not exactly what we wanted to do for two reasons. 1) Many college students do not have much money. 2) The problem does not exactly personal to just throw money at the problem. I am not saying that financial assistance is not necessary. It is definitely needed. With our situation and audience, we wanted to focus on other outlets for action.
While naming the organization, action was always any overlying theme, because we felt that many times awareness is the only focus. While this was important, we felt like awareness would only take us so far. Action was necessary to really make the difference. We decided that our name should be bold and recognizable so we agreed on A.F.R.I.C.A. Figuring out what it stood for was a little more difficult. Because action was necessary, action words only seemed natural so A.F.R.I.C.A. now stand for Aid Facilitate Respond Inform Communicate Act.
So, we had a few members, a name, and a vision. In order to become an official organization on TU campus, an advisor was needed. This turned out to be the difficult part. We asked for recommendations from a few faculty members and one name came up a few times. I emailed that professor and she seemed really excited about the prospect. A meeting was set up to talk about the details and the necessary involvement. Just before the meeting, I received an email from this potential advisor that she was still really excited about the idea but that we should change up the basis for the organization. She wanted to make the focus the culture of Africa and completely ignore any suffering that was taking place. When I responded that while African culture is important and will be included in programming, our focus was to make a difference in the quality of life for those in Africa. This no-longer-potential advisor responded with a less that professional email that we would insult the African students on campus and that our focus would be too limiting and would result in sure failure.
Still reeling from such an email, I continued the search for an advisor. While the search went on, so did the organization. We walked as an organization in the November 11th walk in Tulsa with Hanson, with t-shirts and a poster. I spoke to Isaac about what we had been doing and he received it very well, stating that what we were doing was what it was really about. The walk was a starting point, a point of inspiration to spark projects like ours.
We held a screening of media from Invisible Children (IC) and had a few of the roadies come answer questions and give more information about how to become involved. All of this we did as an unofficial organization, which basically means that any costs came out of our own pocket.
As our popularity on campus grew, our member number grew as well. We went from four to ten in a matter of months. (Not a bad increase for a small private school in Oklahoma.) We still had no advisor but we were gaining momentum and my hope for the organization grew.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Walk
Everyone waits on a walk
Some are long and some small
But all of them tall
And everyone must make a choice
Will I go for it all, and possibly fall
The tightrope is thin
I could possibly win on the walk
The Walk, Hanson
As the date of the concert grew closer I began to frequent hanson.net more and more, first just reading what the band had been up to over the past years, watching the Strong Enough to Break documentary, reading the messages on the forums, and eventually joining the fan club. Before the first show of the tour, the band announced that they would begin to do one mile barefoot walks before each one of their shows. These walks would be to show that we could see what children all over the world go through every day because they did not have shoes. Hanson partnered with TOMS Shoes, a company who give a pair of shoes to a child in poverty for every pair they sold.
This whole idea started because of a company, Docvia, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Docvia created a mobile technology that could be used to connect remote patients with regional medical providers in South Africa and then donated this technology to the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa. Hanson decided to take a trip to South Africa to see and learn as much as they could. While there, they recorded a couple songs for their album, The Walk, with a children's choir in Soweto. One of those songs, Great Divide, was put on iTunes and all the proceeds go to the hospital in South Africa. When the band got back to the states, they had a passion and a need to do something about the conditions they witnessed first-hand in Africa. They partnered with TOMS and the walks began.
The idea of the walk was new and exciting to me. The fact that the band I had always obsessed over was going to be walking through the streets of Tulsa with tons of fans was a real high point. (Please keep in mind that I had never met Hanson at this point.) I found a few other Hanson fans on campus and we decided we would go together. (My friend canceled on me.)
The day of the concert, I checked hanson.net for the time and location of the walk and saw that the show for that evening was canceled. I couldn't speak. I knew that Hanson had never canceled anything unless it was something serious that was wrong. It turns out Isaac Hanson had a medical emergency the night before, and it was a life or death situation. They announced that they would still walk so I skipped my Biology lab and headed to the walk. When I got there, hundreds of fans were already waiting in front of Cain's Ballroom. Taylor and Zac came out and I could not move. Two-thirds of the band that I had been a fan of since I was eight years old was standing 20 feet away. It was all I could I do not to resort to my teeny-bopper 13-year-old self and scream and jump up and down.
Taylor talked to the crowd and a few television cameras for about ten minutes and then the walk started. I took off my shoes and started. At first, I was star-struck. Zac (always had been my favorite) walked right past me and almost bumped into me. After the initial inability to do anything but put one foot in front of the other, I began to think about why I was walking. It was for people, like me, on the other side of the world, who did not have what I had: the shoes in my hand, the car I had driven to the walk, the lunch I had eaten that day, the class I had skipped, my health, my parents, my life. It kind of hit me all at once that I was living in a bubble, a bubble created to keep myself from thinking about suffering and poverty all over the world. It may be depressing but it is the truth, it is real. I remember that I almost began to cry when this hit me and for a split second, I was the only one on the streets of Tulsa. I was their alone because I did not feel like many people had this realization and were walking around in their own little bubble. When the rest of the walkers and Taylor and Zac Hanson came back into focus, I started looking around to see if anyone else had an extremely zoned out look on their face. Some looked as if they were reflecting on the experience but most were just tripping over each other to get within 10 feet of anyone with the last name Hanson. (By the way, in spite of my state of solemn realization, this was hilarious.) As the walk ended, Taylor announced that they would be signing autographs and taking pictures but first he explained that the opening bands were still going to play a show that night and TOMS Shoes would be sold. I got my picture taken with both brothers (hey, I didn't know if I would ever get this opportunity again!) and that night I bought my first pair of TOMS Shoes.
Once I got back to my apartment, I began to think about my realization earlier that day and got a little depressed again. This depression did not last long because I decided that because I had been privileged through my life that I had the responsibility to save the world.
Some are long and some small
But all of them tall
And everyone must make a choice
Will I go for it all, and possibly fall
The tightrope is thin
I could possibly win on the walk
The Walk, Hanson
As the date of the concert grew closer I began to frequent hanson.net more and more, first just reading what the band had been up to over the past years, watching the Strong Enough to Break documentary, reading the messages on the forums, and eventually joining the fan club. Before the first show of the tour, the band announced that they would begin to do one mile barefoot walks before each one of their shows. These walks would be to show that we could see what children all over the world go through every day because they did not have shoes. Hanson partnered with TOMS Shoes, a company who give a pair of shoes to a child in poverty for every pair they sold.
This whole idea started because of a company, Docvia, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Docvia created a mobile technology that could be used to connect remote patients with regional medical providers in South Africa and then donated this technology to the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa. Hanson decided to take a trip to South Africa to see and learn as much as they could. While there, they recorded a couple songs for their album, The Walk, with a children's choir in Soweto. One of those songs, Great Divide, was put on iTunes and all the proceeds go to the hospital in South Africa. When the band got back to the states, they had a passion and a need to do something about the conditions they witnessed first-hand in Africa. They partnered with TOMS and the walks began.
The idea of the walk was new and exciting to me. The fact that the band I had always obsessed over was going to be walking through the streets of Tulsa with tons of fans was a real high point. (Please keep in mind that I had never met Hanson at this point.) I found a few other Hanson fans on campus and we decided we would go together. (My friend canceled on me.)
The day of the concert, I checked hanson.net for the time and location of the walk and saw that the show for that evening was canceled. I couldn't speak. I knew that Hanson had never canceled anything unless it was something serious that was wrong. It turns out Isaac Hanson had a medical emergency the night before, and it was a life or death situation. They announced that they would still walk so I skipped my Biology lab and headed to the walk. When I got there, hundreds of fans were already waiting in front of Cain's Ballroom. Taylor and Zac came out and I could not move. Two-thirds of the band that I had been a fan of since I was eight years old was standing 20 feet away. It was all I could I do not to resort to my teeny-bopper 13-year-old self and scream and jump up and down.
Taylor talked to the crowd and a few television cameras for about ten minutes and then the walk started. I took off my shoes and started. At first, I was star-struck. Zac (always had been my favorite) walked right past me and almost bumped into me. After the initial inability to do anything but put one foot in front of the other, I began to think about why I was walking. It was for people, like me, on the other side of the world, who did not have what I had: the shoes in my hand, the car I had driven to the walk, the lunch I had eaten that day, the class I had skipped, my health, my parents, my life. It kind of hit me all at once that I was living in a bubble, a bubble created to keep myself from thinking about suffering and poverty all over the world. It may be depressing but it is the truth, it is real. I remember that I almost began to cry when this hit me and for a split second, I was the only one on the streets of Tulsa. I was their alone because I did not feel like many people had this realization and were walking around in their own little bubble. When the rest of the walkers and Taylor and Zac Hanson came back into focus, I started looking around to see if anyone else had an extremely zoned out look on their face. Some looked as if they were reflecting on the experience but most were just tripping over each other to get within 10 feet of anyone with the last name Hanson. (By the way, in spite of my state of solemn realization, this was hilarious.) As the walk ended, Taylor announced that they would be signing autographs and taking pictures but first he explained that the opening bands were still going to play a show that night and TOMS Shoes would be sold. I got my picture taken with both brothers (hey, I didn't know if I would ever get this opportunity again!) and that night I bought my first pair of TOMS Shoes.
Once I got back to my apartment, I began to think about my realization earlier that day and got a little depressed again. This depression did not last long because I decided that because I had been privileged through my life that I had the responsibility to save the world.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Where Did It Start
Dare we try and wade through this muddy water
Fill this ocean of need, bottle by bottle
Hollowed we stand and watch this parade
Saturday morning down to the graves
Where Did It Start, Hanson
It all began when I was in second grade. My first concert was a PTA-sponsored event at my elementary school in the middle of the afternoon. The whole school filed in to the huge round gym. Because we were second graders, we had to sit on the floor, while the eighth graders sat on the bleachers. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson were announced and the music began. I cannot tell you what songs they played (though I could probably guess), but I can say that by the time I left the concert, I had this incredible feeling of freedom and exhilaration flowing through me. I was humming songs all the way back to the classroom, even though I was not sure what I was humming. My love for music and Hanson began that day in second grade.
A year and a half later, MMMBop was released and teenage girls everywhere went crazy. TeenBop and other magazine covers were plastered with pictures of the three blond boys that "looked like girls." I was not immune to the hype and soon began to save my allowance to buy these magazines and cover my bedroom walls with photos of the boys that originally turned me on to music. Their would be Hanson t-shirts in J.C. Penney and my sister and I would beg for a shirt every time we passed them. We asked for Hanson CDs and videos and clothing for Christmas and stood in line for hours for tickets to one of their shows. Because of the popularity of this band in 1997-1998, I knew that I was not the only one that "really liked Hanson."
After the hype from MMMBop and the Middle of Nowhere album, Hanson took a couple years and released This Time Around in 2000. They were still wildly popular and I think that I owned this CD at one point but it seemed to disappear at some point.
After this album, Hanson "took a few years off" to write a third studio album. What was really happening during this time was a music merger and Hanson, a pop group, came to be under a rap label. Needless to say, this did not go over smoothly. Because the band was trying to put out a third studio album, they continued to write songs and present them to their A&R guy, but this particular executive thought that Hanson did not have a hit song and sent them back to the drawing board. The band ended up writing over 80 songs during the time they spent making this record. It took nearly four years, leaving their label, creating their own label (3CG Records), and filming the whole thing to make their third studio album, Underneath. The footage that was filmed during this process was made into a documentary called Strong Enough To Break, which highlighted the issues with the music industry today and the struggles that artists are facing.
Hanson spent most of 2004-2005 touring and in the summer of 2007 released their fourth studio album, The Walk.
While Hanson was making music and fighting the "man," I was fighting the hardships of being an awkward, intelligent child and later teenager in Oklahoma at a small school. I was regularly bullied for various reasons, one of them being that I was a Hanson fan. (My interest in Hanson slowly fizzed away. I still listened to their music every once in a while though.) In high school, I went through various phases. The rebellious and "dress in black" phase. (For the attention and shock value if I remember correctly). The trying-to-be-popular-by-dating-a-high-school-musician phase. (It did not work out...I had/have a thing for drummers, and this guy was NOT a drummer.) And finally I ended high school with the get-me-the-f@#$-outta-here phase. (Oklahoma... enough said.) I was smart and did well as far as grades and ACT scores were concerned but not well enough to get a huge amount of money thrown at me for the university of my choice. I decided that if I was going to be forced to stay in state, I would go to the best university in the state: the University of Tulsa. My freshman year was uneventful and I did not make a huge amount of friends but I survived it.
The summer before my sophomore year is when things really started to get interesting. I was shopping in a thrift store in my hometown for dishes or curtains for my apartment, and I came across a CD of independent recordings of Hanson from before 1997. I bought it for $4.99 and immediately stuck it in the CD player as soon as I got in the car. A wave of familiarity ran over me as soon as I heard it. I decided to look up what Hanson had been up to since I had last heard about them and found the official website online. I was looking around and clicked on the Tours/Events tab. There it was... Hanson was starting a new tour to promote their new album The Walk, and they were to play a show on October 3rd at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa. I called up a friend and told her about the show. She was excited and we decided to go. I bought our tickets and patiently waited as school started and new events started to unfold. Little did I know then that these events would end up shaping my life choices over the nest year and give me new direction, meaning, and passion for my life.
(This may seem like it is a biography for the band Hanson, but I promise the part where they change my whole life is coming soon. It is first necessary to start at the beginning, so I needed to give some background. Please keep reading.)
Fill this ocean of need, bottle by bottle
Hollowed we stand and watch this parade
Saturday morning down to the graves
Where Did It Start, Hanson
It all began when I was in second grade. My first concert was a PTA-sponsored event at my elementary school in the middle of the afternoon. The whole school filed in to the huge round gym. Because we were second graders, we had to sit on the floor, while the eighth graders sat on the bleachers. Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hanson were announced and the music began. I cannot tell you what songs they played (though I could probably guess), but I can say that by the time I left the concert, I had this incredible feeling of freedom and exhilaration flowing through me. I was humming songs all the way back to the classroom, even though I was not sure what I was humming. My love for music and Hanson began that day in second grade.
A year and a half later, MMMBop was released and teenage girls everywhere went crazy. TeenBop and other magazine covers were plastered with pictures of the three blond boys that "looked like girls." I was not immune to the hype and soon began to save my allowance to buy these magazines and cover my bedroom walls with photos of the boys that originally turned me on to music. Their would be Hanson t-shirts in J.C. Penney and my sister and I would beg for a shirt every time we passed them. We asked for Hanson CDs and videos and clothing for Christmas and stood in line for hours for tickets to one of their shows. Because of the popularity of this band in 1997-1998, I knew that I was not the only one that "really liked Hanson."
After the hype from MMMBop and the Middle of Nowhere album, Hanson took a couple years and released This Time Around in 2000. They were still wildly popular and I think that I owned this CD at one point but it seemed to disappear at some point.
After this album, Hanson "took a few years off" to write a third studio album. What was really happening during this time was a music merger and Hanson, a pop group, came to be under a rap label. Needless to say, this did not go over smoothly. Because the band was trying to put out a third studio album, they continued to write songs and present them to their A&R guy, but this particular executive thought that Hanson did not have a hit song and sent them back to the drawing board. The band ended up writing over 80 songs during the time they spent making this record. It took nearly four years, leaving their label, creating their own label (3CG Records), and filming the whole thing to make their third studio album, Underneath. The footage that was filmed during this process was made into a documentary called Strong Enough To Break, which highlighted the issues with the music industry today and the struggles that artists are facing.
Hanson spent most of 2004-2005 touring and in the summer of 2007 released their fourth studio album, The Walk.
While Hanson was making music and fighting the "man," I was fighting the hardships of being an awkward, intelligent child and later teenager in Oklahoma at a small school. I was regularly bullied for various reasons, one of them being that I was a Hanson fan. (My interest in Hanson slowly fizzed away. I still listened to their music every once in a while though.) In high school, I went through various phases. The rebellious and "dress in black" phase. (For the attention and shock value if I remember correctly). The trying-to-be-popular-by-dating-a-high-school-musician phase. (It did not work out...I had/have a thing for drummers, and this guy was NOT a drummer.) And finally I ended high school with the get-me-the-f@#$-outta-here phase. (Oklahoma... enough said.) I was smart and did well as far as grades and ACT scores were concerned but not well enough to get a huge amount of money thrown at me for the university of my choice. I decided that if I was going to be forced to stay in state, I would go to the best university in the state: the University of Tulsa. My freshman year was uneventful and I did not make a huge amount of friends but I survived it.
The summer before my sophomore year is when things really started to get interesting. I was shopping in a thrift store in my hometown for dishes or curtains for my apartment, and I came across a CD of independent recordings of Hanson from before 1997. I bought it for $4.99 and immediately stuck it in the CD player as soon as I got in the car. A wave of familiarity ran over me as soon as I heard it. I decided to look up what Hanson had been up to since I had last heard about them and found the official website online. I was looking around and clicked on the Tours/Events tab. There it was... Hanson was starting a new tour to promote their new album The Walk, and they were to play a show on October 3rd at the Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa. I called up a friend and told her about the show. She was excited and we decided to go. I bought our tickets and patiently waited as school started and new events started to unfold. Little did I know then that these events would end up shaping my life choices over the nest year and give me new direction, meaning, and passion for my life.
(This may seem like it is a biography for the band Hanson, but I promise the part where they change my whole life is coming soon. It is first necessary to start at the beginning, so I needed to give some background. Please keep reading.)
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