“Lance
Armstrong cheated.”
“Lance Armstrong‘s a terrific athlete. Y’ know, he swam
competitively as a kid…”
“Lance Armstrong is a hope machine.”
Of the opinions I’ve
heard voiced since Lance Armstrong was banned by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
(USADA), the last one sticks out. A hope
machine. For having survived cancer. For his seven Tour wins in a row. For the
LIVESTRONG Foundation: a top-ten funder of cancer research worldwide and
source of inspiration and empowerment to many.
What, if anything else, has ever called to my mind the words “hope” and “machine” together? Is
there a Lance Armstrong equivalent in the cerebral palsy (CP) world?
* * * * *
When I met
Leif Smith and Pat Wagner, they were operating what they called “a general
store for explorers” in Denver and making a rather unusual offering. I don’t remember how
the value proposition was worded, but their service worked as follows. For a
small investment – a little bit o’ dough and an earnest effort on my part to put into words what I most wanted to explore (my “passion”) – they
would provide me with custom-tailored information: names and
descriptions of people from around the world who could help me progress, i.e., forge ahead.
In machine-like fashion, they used my query, my quest, as raw material / input...added value to it...and generated a
report /output.
The report I received from them in return was impressive. As much as I valued the
content, though, I valued learning that there were other
people out there with similar interests even more. It "proved" to me ( the evidence was right there
in writing ) that you don’t have to stay stuck. There’s no such thing as a dead
end. You don't have to give up.
Hope.
* * * * *
You may have guessed that that hope machine predated the
Internet. Both parties to the transaction used typewriters and twenty cent stamps; the whole process took a couple of weeks.
Nowadays…
What with today’s digital
infrastructure, you can pretty much do everything we did then in a matter of
seconds. You can search for and find hope online
– by going, for example, to www.livestrong.org.
The second and third have been on
my radar of late because of my interest in knowledge flows in the CP world, and, because of some specific initiatives they’ve independently launched.
The organization behind www.ucp.org I’ve known about for some time: United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) and its nearly 100 affiliates have "a mission to advance the independence, productivity and full citizenship of people with a spectrum of disabilities by providing services and support to more than 176,000 children and adults every day—one person at a time, one family at a time.”
As for www.redtreehouse.org, I only recently stumbled on it. Red Treehouse was born of a partnership between Ohio Family and Children First (OFCF) and the Ronald McDonald House® of Cleveland, Inc. (RMH). It was formed for the benefit of kids with chronic illnesses and disabilities to provide an online place for families and professionals to DISCOVER ANSWERS. MAKE CONNECTIONS. FIND HOPE.
Although they have different ways of saying it, these organizations have taken it upon themselves to become significant sources of
inspiration and empowerment. They're hope-machines-in-the-making. I’m very interested in what they're striving to do. Especially as it relates to their efforts to harness the power of the Net to those ends.
That's what I hope to explore via a series of posts. I have some ideas about the analyzing lenses I'd like to look through. I don't, on the other hand, have many ideas about where things may lead.
I only hope -- myself -- to be helpful along the way, 'cause I'm supportive of both organizations.
I only hope -- myself -- to be helpful along the way, 'cause I'm supportive of both organizations.
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