Homelessness not Hopelessness

There are roughly 2 million youths who experience homelessness every year.

Many of these kids are on the street due to issues beyond their control.

Girls that are being sexually molested by their fathers and boys who are being physically abused by their supposed loved ones, run away and are left on the streets because of the harsh card life has dealt them.

Roughly 2 million youths…

Let that sink in for a moment before watching this:

I found out about this campaign via Mark Horvath.

I’ve talked about Mark Horvath and his great work with Invisible People before. And I even had the chance to hang out this year IRL at SxSW and it was awesome to see that even in the midst of all that was going on (parties, events, etc.) – he still carried a backpack full of fresh socks (or freshies) to hand out to those on the streets of Austin.

As part of his own work to end homelessness, Mark kicked off a cross-country tour last month and he’s been highlighting the stories of homeless youth across the country. And this week he announced his partnership with Virgin Mobile, RE*Generation and Sevenly to help raise funds to help keep teens off the street.

“I understand where these kids are coming from. I was homeless myself but with the help and kindness of others, I was able get out of my dire situation. Our homeless youth deserve that chance and much more,” said Horvath. “These kids need compassion, guidance and care. With Sevenly.org and The RE*Generation, I believe we can really make a significant difference.”

To raise funds, Sevenly is selling some great shirts and for every shirt sold, $7 will go towards RE*Generation. And as a bonus… if 3,000 people share the Sevenly website this week (they’re at 1600 shares currently) Virgin Mobile will throw in an additional $50,000 to support RE*Generation.

So buy a shirt and share the site and do something to help end youth homelessness… and next time you’re out, grab an extra bag of socks to handout yourself. I know many would appreciate a clean pair of socks as much (if not more) than your spare change.

To see some of the teens already helped visit InvisiblePeople.tv or Mark’s Tumblr.

Open Our Eyes – an interview with Kevin Hendricks

Kevin D. Hendricks
Kevin D. Hendricks

Last week, I told you about Kevin Hendrick’s latest publication – Open Our Eyes: Seeing the Invisible People of Homelessness.

The book officially releases today but I ordered an “advance” copy and loved reading it over the weekend.

Kevin and the other collaborators did a great job to help share the message Mark Horvath has been sharing at invisiblepeople.tv since 2008 — and all the proceeds from the book go straight to helping Mark continue his great work.

Plus – I believe it’s the first book (other than my own) to make mention of our podcast… so that makes it cool in it’s own right :-).

Kevin graciously agreed to take time away from writing his next novel to do a short interview with me via e-mail. Here’s what he had to say… Continue reading Open Our Eyes – an interview with Kevin Hendricks

Homeless man Under Pressure

A video shared by Mark Horvath:

(I) Keep coming up with love but it’s so slashed and torn
Why – why – why ?
Love love love love love
Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love give love
‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

BTW – I’ll be speaking about this crazy love this coming Sunday at encounter in Waxahachie. Come join the discussion at 10:30 a.m. CST. If you can’t make it to Waxahachie Sunday morning you should be able to join in online – live.encounterthis.com

UPDATE: Mark tells me this man is not homeless. His name is Sky Soleil and he lives in Los Angeles. Mark wrote, “I think this is a cute video and it made me smile, but Sky should have been upfront about not really being homeless. being dishonest and using a gimmick to help a video get views sucks!” I agree.

UPDATE 2: This is from the description on YouTube:

This is a performance meant to entertain and inspire.

If you want to help…

http://www.squidoo.com/help-the-homel…

http://homelessness.change.org/nonpro…

As I said this is a performance. I don’t want there to be any doubts about my situation. I am a performer. I have a roof over my head and I have yet to start my own family. But this video isn’t about me. This is for the men, women and children on our streets who don’t have bright green puppets on their hands. The people who aren’t always as easy to see. This is for you.

http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/

UPDATE 3: Change.org posted an interview with Sky Soleil, the actor in the video. A great interview – worth reading. Shows how a simple act can really spur a lot of people to action.

Posterous as a Twitter Client

posterous vs. tumblr

Related to my questions from last week, between Posterous vs Tumblr, Lifehack.org has shared an interested idea for the micro-blogging site Posterous.

(BTW – Mashable picked Tumblr over Posterous but a survey of their readers showed a preference of Tumblr over Posterous)

Continue reading Posterous as a Twitter Client

More Idea Camp notes #icdc

Idea Camp DC

I missed a couple sessions since my last post but thought I’d pass along a few notes before the closing session.

Several people have also been live blogging the event and I’ll try and track down their blogs to pass along their notes as well.

(read part 1)
Continue reading More Idea Camp notes #icdc