Now that elections are over many people are going to jump straight into analyzing the races, who did what right/wrong and what we can expect from this new House and Senate. There will be plenty of time for that in the next weeks and months, but I want to take a quick time-out to talk about something very close to my heart.
Last weekend at the UCLA-Arizona football game, I had the opportunity as a sponsor to speak to 600 children in the Lift Up America program. For those of you not familiar with LUA, it is a non-profit humanitarian organization that encourages and educates underprivileged youth while providing them opportunities with leading corporations, sports teams, media groups and other non-profits. The whole idea behind LUA is turning these amazing kids into ‘ambassadors of compassion,’ who go back into their neighborhoods and share the things that they have learned with their peers.
The kids were at the game to celebrate their completion of the first level of training, during which they helped clean up city parks, remove graffiti, created a recreation center out of an abandoned building and some of them even returned to school after dropping out. To celebrate their accomplishments, as Ambassadors of Compassion, they were awarded diplomas at pre-game tailgate party and got to run across the field before taking their seats and enjoying the game.
I was personally so encouraged to see so many people going out of their way to help others and it just reinforced in my mind what a great country we live in. After the last few months of political wrangling, I am exhausted from the negativity that surrounds us at election time. I know for some, the result of these elections will bring great joy; for others, dismay. I think we can all agree that regardless of how we lean politically, we can certainly do better as human beings.
I speak only for myself when I say that it is all too easy to expect others to get involved. All too often, the “others” is the government. I can guarantee you that as a community, we can be far more efficient and caring than any government bureaucracy could ever be.