Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Leadership Program

This blog is dedicated to the community service work of the Leadership Program participants at Brooklyn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

[bbjjleadership]

Week 5

For this week, I made another donation to Save the Children's Nepal Earthquake Children's Relief Fund. Although it has been over a month since the earthquake, the humanitarian situation remains dire. Hopefully my contribution will be a small step towards meeting those very urgent needs.

[bbjjleadership]

Leadership Week 4

Feels like we skipped over spring and went right from winter to summer.  But that does not relieve us of doing spring cleaning.  Did spring cleaning and donated all the spring clothes not being used by us. 

[bbjjleadership]

The kindergarten class at Blue School teamed up with Charity: Water to raise $4,000 to build a well or filtration system for a community in need.  As part of this effort, they set up a fundraising event late last week selling hand-crafted items and home-baked goods.  I bought this tee-shirt to support their cause.

[bbjjleadership]

Nepal Earthquake Relief

Made a donation to savethechildren.org.

[bbjjleadership]

Plymouth Book Angel Drive

I donated to my kids' school library today for their annual book drive.

[bbjjleadership]

Week 4

This week, I made a donation to one of the most effective charities in the world, Partners in Health (PIH). While their recent work in stopping the Ebola outbreak has received a lot of attention, the fact is that they have been doing vitally important things for decades. They bring modern medical care to some of the most impoverished and under-served groups around the world, doing their part to put forward the vision that health is a basic human right that should be denied to no one. I first heard about them because of a friend of a friend who passed away due to a brain tumor in his 50s. He had asked those around him to make donations to PIH because he felt that he was lucky to live in the US and have access to all of these modern treatments that are unavailable to most of the world. After learning about it through his story, I have made donations to PIH and participated in fundraising events here in New York on several occasions. Hopefully my donation today is just one in a long series, as the world can really benefit from what PIH does.

[bbjjleadership]

Week 3

For this week, I participated in a beach clean up organized by the Red Hook Boaters and Riverkeeper. Riverkeeper organizes a once a year sweep to clean up a number of sites along the Hudson river, and one of those sites is the Louis Valentino Jr. Pier in Red Hook where the Red Hook Boaters run their free walk-up kayaking program in the summer. I helped operate the kayaking program during last summer and I plan to volunteer again this year, so I wanted to join the clean up this year. At first, it was a bit sad to see the volume of garbage that had floated ashore over course of the year. However, there was a great turnout for the event and everyone put in a huge effort to get rid of as much waste as possible. By the end of the day, the beach was in vastly better condition.

[bbjjleadership]

Leadership Seminar Week 3

I got an email from a co-worker asking for help for CITY HARVEST’S “SKIP LUNCH FIGHT HUNGER” campaign. 

In a country with so much, how can anyone be allowed to go hungry, especially children. 

The scary statistic was “nearly 1 in 4 New York children don’t always know where their next meal will come from." 

$50 helps feed 6 children for an entire month.

[bbjjleadership]

Community service

Gave money back to my high school for scholarship fund

[bbjjleadership]

Blue School Service Day

Blue School, which is located near South Street Seaport, is having a service day tomorrow (Thursday).  All students are doing community service all day.  I will pitch in for at least an hour in the afternoon.

[bbjjleadership]

Week 2 Leadership Service to the Community

This week as I was riding my bike home from class down Columbia Street, I got the corner of Union Street and saw that a full trash can had been knocked over littering the street and sidewalk. As I went to ride around the garbage I felt annoyed that somebody had created such a mess and nobody had bothered to clean it up. I made it about half way down the block when I realized that not only did I have my winter gloves in my back pack, but by avoiding the problem, I too was passing it on to somebody else. I went back, put on my gloves, and picked up every piece of trash that had spilled. It only took about three minutes, but I felt satisfied as I looked at the corner once I had cleaned it up. I felt that in maintaining a level cleanliness and comfort, I could appreciate the space more having participated in it’s upkeep.

[bbjjleadership]

Today I was able to serve the community in a humanitarian way along with a family member (Cousin Steven)… Long story short we were in a cab heading to midtown where I was going to catch a train towards leadership and we got into a car accident on 57th street and 10th Ave. The taxi vehicle was struck by a motorcycle in which gas started spewing from the front end tank of the bike. Right there we could have walked away but instead volunteered our services…  I immediately went into a construction operation management mindset and started redirecting traffic and requesting pedestrians to clear the area do to hazardous spill while my cousin attended to the injured motorcyclist since he is a construction safety manager and is experienced with accident injuries/CPR/etc… I called the emergency medical line as well as fire department as I maintained traffic detouring while my cousin contacted a special fire service line and helping Elvis (Motorcyclist) regain consciousness as well as deal with shock… My cousin and I stayed there until both the Fire Department and Police Department arrived as well as continued to offer service based off on experience in the field… One particular incident within the scenario to envision was an innocent bystander coming to be a spectator while smoking a cigarette… I immediately went up to her and advised her that if she did not step back that the already negative situation could go for a turn in the worst… She responded in kind and literally ran away… I have to say I was challenged with where I wanted to be but knew that I needed to be there and see this through towards the end… On top of that I decided that day to start handing out postcards for the open house at least once a day to a stranger and invite them to our dojos event on 6/6/15… This cooperation concept needs to go viral J OSS

[bbjjleadership]

Service Week 2

This week I went through all my clothes and my kids clothes to find items that just aren’t being used.  Change of season is a great time to look back and find clothes that you aren’t making use of and give them to someone who will.  You donate clothes to help others and de-clutter you own life.  Win-Win.

[bbjjleadership]

Week 2 Community Service

For this week, I went through my wardrobe and found many items of clothing that no longer fit me or I no longer wear. I will be donating these to Housing Works, a charity that provides healthcare and housing to homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Housing Works generates over 25% of its funding through social enterprises such as their thrift shops, and donations of goods play a small but important role.

[bbjjleadership]

Community Service

For this week's community service, I donated money to Save the Children's Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund.  Disasters of such magnitude have a massive need for cash as rescuers race against the clock to find survivors.  Every news story of another person rescued from the devastation is an urgent reminder of their desperate need.

[bbjjleadership]

Community Service: Week 1

Today I donated 25 dollars to the disaster relief effort at Nepal and the Middle East do to a category 7.5 earth quake… I also shared such action on my Facebook page in order to motivate others to do the same as well as raise awareness… I am a big person on paying it forward and this is a major scenario in which thousands of lives have been effected let alone the future challenges that these people are going to endure.. I wish them nothing but love and happiness… Oss

[bbjjleadership]

Plymouth Church School Spring Gala

The Spring Gala is an annual fundraising event at my kids' school which takes place on 5/1.  I purchased and donated $50 of wine for the event and signed up to volunteer for an hour to help set up the day before.