Lost and Found in America

Have you ever had the experience of being away on vacation, perhaps standing on the beach or lying in the woods, and thought "I wish I could just bottle this and take it with me"? There is a great commercial playing on TV these days by GE that shows a little boy carrying a bottle of "captured wind" to a family birthday celebration that is beautifully shot and is, apparently based on a fable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=563GHUCECBg.

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to figure out how to "capture the wind" of our Lost in Woonsocket experience and share it in a much broader sense and I think I've found it. Last week, we started to put the plans together to start Lost and Found in America, Inc., a non-profit organization created to restore the basic values of our American society through media projects. Respect, dignity, integrity, humanity, to name just a few. We'll support those organizations that are dedicated to these issues such as Matthew 25 Center for Hope, Crossroads and Mobile Loaves and Fishes. We discovered a real sense of togetherness when we came together for the screening in Woonsocket (ok, I didn't really discover it, I really just experienced it for the first time, which moved me to action). When all was said and done, almost 1,200 people watched the movie, and Matthew 25 and Crossroads each made over $4,000 by splitting ticket sales, DVD sales and collections. This seems to be a great model for future endeavors.

More importantly, what I got about Normand was this amazing sense of accomplishment he was feeling and how dedicated he was/is to this "movement" of helping others overcome issues of addiction and homelessness. I wanted to be part of something that could give him a permanent outlet for that energy and I am set on creating a position in this new organization for Normand to be a speaker and go on tour, supporting others in their quest for restoring humanity in our world. If we could create something for kids to participate here as well, it would be really exciting. David Riordan is going to create a place on the new website for people to upload their stories - we're thinking about putting them out in a book ala "PostSecret". Very exciting! I am so pumped about this - if we make a difference in one person's life, it will have been worth it.

-B