Dad Gives Daughter Graduation Gift Thirteen Years in the Making

Bryan Martin, Kenly, N.C., USA

Scott Stump, MSNBC - For 13 years, Bryan Martin kept the book hidden from his daughter, dutifully taking it to her teachers, coaches and school principals every year to have them append it with positive comments and messages.

Finally, on June 8—the day of her graduation from North Johnston High School in Kenly, N.C.—Brenna Martin received a special copy of the Dr. Seuss classic “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

“At first I just smiled and said that it meant a lot and that I loved that book,” Brenna wrote on her Imgur.com page. “But then he told me ‘No, open it up.’

“On the first page I see a short paragraph written by none other than my kindergarten teacher. I start tearing up, but I’m still confused. He tells me, ‘Every year, for the past 13 years, since the day you started kindergarten, I’ve gotten every teacher, coach, and principal to write a little something about you inside this book.”’

Initially thinking she was just going to get a “cheesy card” when her dad said he had a present for her, Brenna received a heartfelt gift more than a decade in the making. Her father turned a children’s book that sells for about 10 bucks online into the gift of a lifetime.

On her graduation day, Brenna tweeted: “I can’t explain how moved I am by all of this, and somehow they kept it a secret for all these years. #amazed.”

 She added, “Every teacher since I was 5 has written something sweet to me in this book.”

Brenna posted a photo of herself holding the book and one of the inscriptions inside it. The message inside it range from her early teachers mentioning her “pigtails and giggles” to her high school teachers commenting on her “wit and sharp thinking.”

“Yes the intended effect occurred… I burst out in tears,” Brenna wrote on her Imgur.com page. “Sitting there reading through this book, there are encouraging and sweet words from every teacher I love and remember through my years in this small town.

“It is astounding to receive something this moving, touching, nostalgic, and thoughtful. I can’t express how much I love my Dad for this labor of love.”

Since Brenna posted the news of her gift, her Imgur.com page has received 10.8 million views and counting in only two weeks. And it has inspired other parents of young children to start similar projects of their own.

Bsketball: Inventive Thinking

James Naismith

By John Maxwell
Disheartened after another day of failing to connect with his students, the young teacher trudged upstairs to his office and slumped down at his desk chair in defeat. He was angry, and he had every right to be mad. After all, his boss at the YMCA had assigned him a seemingly impossible task. He had been handed a classroom full of misbehaving mischief-makers whom he somehow was expected to make enthusiastic about physical fitness—within two weeks. His three predecessors each had been dismissed after unsuccessful attempts to interest the unruly young men in exercise. Unless something changed, it looked like he would be following their footsteps out the door.

As for activities, his options were limited. Winter weather had forced the physical education class indoors to the gymnasium, and his students showed absolutely no attraction to the usual calisthenics: push-ups, sit-ups, and the like. Also, since many of the students were notorious troublemakers, any sport lending itself to rough play was off limits. He had found that out the hard way after an aborted attempt to introduce lacrosse had ended in a slew of injuries. He had tried derivations of indoor soccer too, but the students had been completely unreceptive to them.

Mulling over the predicament, the young gym instructor concluded that nothing of the usual variety would hold the attention of his students. He needed to come up with a new game. He then began to think abstractly about the team sports he knew, recognizing that, at root, each involved a ball and a goal. He decided a larger, softer ball would be most appropriate for an indoor game. To eliminate violence, he wanted to move away from a type of goal which encouraged forceful or fast-moving shots as in hockey or soccer. Consequently, he hit upon the idea of a goal with an opening at the top rather than on the side to require an arcing or looping trajectory for shots. Since defenders could easily surround and guard such a box-goal, he chose to mount it above their heads. Finally, to prevent the rough collisions of tackling, he stipulated that the person with the ball could not advance it on foot but only by passing.

After several hours spent pondering how the game would be played, the young teacher drew up a list of thirteen rules and had them typed out. He then asked the gymnasium’s facility manager for two wooden boxes so that he could construct the goals. The building superintendent did not have any boxes but provided two peach baskets instead. The next day the young instructor nailed the baskets about 10 feet above the floor of the gym and put the rules of his newly created sport on display. Not only did the game appeal to his students, within a matter of months basket-ball had caught on at YMCAs around the country. The once-discouraged gym teacher, James Naismith, had invented a sport which would go on to become one of the most popular in the world. In 2010 its original rules, which Naismith had scrawled on two pieces of paper, sold for $4.3 million!

A bike as economic engine. F.K. Day, United States.

CS Monitor, November 18, 2012
 Life in rural Zambia has improved dramatically for dairy farmer Cecil Hankambe. He has doubled his milk sales, purchased a farm, and earned enough money to send his children to school. He still milks the same cow and travels the same rugged roads to the local dairy co-op. The only difference now: Instead of lugging a heavy jug on foot, he pedals a bicycle.

Mr. Hankambe rides a Buffalo, a bike so sturdy and basic that its steel frame can carry up to 220 pounds and be repaired with a rock. Instead of delivering only seven to 10 liters of milk a day, Hankambe can now transport 15 to 20 liters to a chilling station before it spoils, boosting his profit.

“A reliable bike can create reliability in a dairy farmer’s income,” says F.K. Day, founder of World Bicycle Relief, a foundation based in Chicago that produces the Buffalo and provides two-wheeled aid to people in developing nations. “You forget how important transportation is.”

Mr. Day cringes at the word “philanthropist,” even though his nonprofit group since 2005 has raised more than $13.5 million, distributed 116,000 bicycles at $134 each across 11 countries in Africa, and trained more than 800 bicycle mechanics.

“There is not a greater gift that one can give a community than an economic engine,” says Day. “An industrial revolution on a personal level can push someone’s productivity forward and help them to help their families and communities.”

Before you think of Day as an enterprising industrialist who has arrived on the African continent to build a bicycle empire, let’s back up. As a teenager, he flew—on his own initiative—from Chicago to Brazil to knock on the door of Irish priests who were building schools in São Paulo’s poorest neighborhoods. They hadn’t responded to his letters. But when he showed up on their doorstep, they had no choice but to put him to work.

That experience laid the groundwork for what followed three decades later. On Dec. 26, 2004, horrific images of tsunami-swept Southeast Asia flickered on TV screens in the United States. Day, now a successful cofounder of SRAM, an elite bicycle-parts manufacturer, wanted to do more than just fund relief efforts.

So he and his wife, Leah, boarded a plane to Sri Lanka. Within weeks, Day had partnered with World Vision; he eventually oversaw the distribution of 24,000 bicycles that gave thousands of people affected by the tsunami the ability to reach their jobs, schools, and health-care centers.

From that experience, Day built his own model for a sustainable philanthropy, spoke by spoke, and World Bicycle Relief hit the road. Since 2005, its core strategy has remained simple: Provide transportation in the wake of disasters, help health-care workers visit more clients, make it easier for rural schoolchildren (particularly girls) to reach distant classrooms, increase the amount of goods people transport to market.

World Bicycle Relief now partners with groups (which buy Buffalo bikes to distribute through aid and microfinance programs) in Zambia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Day, who makes several field trips to Africa a year, says there is no replacement for hands-on experience.