“I’m comiiiiinggg!” Archbishop Tutu sings out from the adjacent room, the words rolling off his tongue in a playfully high-pitched refrain, before he comes wheeling and teetering—all 5’2” of him—around the corner of his suite at the Atlanta Grand Hyatt.

Deep breath in. The adrenaline unleashed by excitement and nervousness takes hold. Mouth is dry, heart is beating fast, and mind is racing, searching for the proper greeting for an Archbishop. “It is an honor to meet you, Father.” Or, should it be, “Your Grace?” “Your Holiness?”

Archbishop Tutu joins us at the dining room table. His smile is gracious and slightly mischievous, his eyes sparkle, and his face matches the image of a man who has been signing his emails to us “Love and blessings, Arch.” Formality fades, and we begin our conversation with a kindred spirit, a man far too excited about life and people to be bothered by titles.

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Following correspondence with Archbishop Desmond Tutu over the past few months, we are proud to announce that he has agreed to share his experience creating social change with The Purpose Project!

Through this partnership, we will feature a portion of Archbishop Tutu’s story in one of the twelve chapters in our forthcoming book and use his leadership experiences as the basis for parts of the accompanying curriculum.

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We’re excited to announce the support and partnership of The Redwoods Group, a leader in providing risk management services, property and casualty insurance and claims management to YMCAs and Jewish community organizations throughout the nation.

With a mission “to protect and improve the quality of life in the communities we serve” and a motto to “Serve Others®,” Redwoods is pushing the envelope of corporate social responsibility; while many progressive corporations have integrated a social mission into their profit model, Redwoods has made it the driving factor of its bottom line.

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Over the past several months, we have built a number of exciting institutional partnerships that will help  us to serve our local Connecticut community while simultaneously creating resources and pilot models that we will be able replicate on a national scale in the future

Focus: High School Students

In partnership with The Connecticut Forum, The Purpose Project is developing the curriculum for a program to inspire and equip high school students to become effective agents of social change within their communities.

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In January, we moved The Purpose Project into a new, drastically subsidized, and very special home in the re-dedicated City Arts on Pearl building in downtown Hartford. TheaterWorks—a non-profit theater group for social change, which owns and resides in the building—has transformed a portion of this 1927 Art Deco building at 233 Pearl St. into low-rent office space for a dozen local non-profit organizations.

TheaterWorks’ Artistic and Executive Director Steve Campo is in the process of transforming the space into a hub for creativity and community action within our city and we’re excited to be a part of it!

See pictures of City Arts on Pearl, and learn more at Metromix

Read the recent article in The Hartford Courant

This week, community service has been more popular than ever. Monday, millions of Americans from coast to coast joined forces to complete over 11,000 officially-registered community service projects designed to “bridge barriers, strengthen communities, and empower individuals” as part of the 2009 King Day of Service. Although the King Holiday and Service Act was signed more than 14 years ago, this year public involvement in active observances of the holiday doubled 2008 levels. This spike in civic participation is no accident.

President Obama has repeatedly called for our service during his campaign and transition period, and simultaneously pledged to do his part by making service the cause of his presidency. His first action towards that goal has been the creation of USAService.org. Support of President Obama’s mission to re-engage Americans in their communities is vast. ServiceNation has issued a Declaration of Service, the Huffington Post made service the theme of it’s pre-inaugural ball, and MTV has created a Be the Change online community.

read the rest of this article at the Huffington Post

Our generation is often referred to as the young and invincible–full of ambition, and ready and willing to throw ourselves headlong down the path of our dreams. Some may even call us brazen. We have entered the professional world with great expectations about what we will accomplish and plenty of energy to get us off to a good start. But how are our drive and dedication affected when things don’t go according to plan?

Recently, I have discovered that the path between our aspirations and accomplishments can be longer and more complicated than anticipated. And, as we move from inspiration to action, most of us will encounter at least a few detours and dead-ends along the way. The question that we must ask ourselves when this happens is, will we allow these obstacles to lead us off course, or will we use them as guideposts that reveal a more productive direction?
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Two years ago today, I was boarding a plane to Kabul. I was going to work on one of the many post-conflict development programs being implemented in Afghanistan. I believed that I was going to help its citizens define a new future for their country.

The decision to go to Afghanistan was a difficult one for me to make. Even though I had much experience traveling and working in developing economies, this assignment would be different. The issue of safety and security on this trip was of much greater concern. However, at that time, I could assure my friends and family that I would not be a likely target for violence myself.

read the rest of this article at The Huffington Post

I wanted to follow up on my last message about this year’s Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), in which I promised to let you know this year’s total amount raised and donated to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute by the PMC. Last Thursday, that total was revealed at the check presentation held by the PMC at Harvard Medical School: (insert drum roll…) $35 Million!

This record-breaking amount represents the largest gift that the PMC has made to Dana-Farber over the past 29 years, and it is also the single-largest gift to charity made by any athletic fundraiser in the country! Many of you contributed to this success through your support of my ride, and those of others, and I thank you.

I wrote a short piece about my experience with the PMC over the past year which was published by The Huffington Post yesterday.

We intend to continue to count on The Huffington Post as a way to spread the word about our work with The Purpose Project and to share more pieces of the stories of the leaders with whom we are working. Please find the story here, and, if you are so inclined, click on the “buzz up” button near the top (which helps build our prominence on the site).

Thanks for your continued support!
Michelle

Boston, MA-On Thursday, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute received a check for $35 million from the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), the most successful athletic fundraising event in the nation. Some of these dollars will be used to treat a portion of the 1.4 million children and adults who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. And some will fund Dana-Farber’s pioneering research which provides patients with increasingly high odds of survival. But all of them, according to Dana-Farber President Edward J. Benz, Jr., MD are “critical to our mission to eradicate cancer.” And, what makes this gift remarkable is that most of it came from people just like you and me, despite the squeeze that we are feeling on our personal finances.

Read the rest of this entry at The Huffington Post