<p>Maggie Doyne took a gap year off to travel the world. She never made it back to college but instead started one of the most inspiring and admirable projects I have ever known a young person to undertake. This week she was awarded the $100,000 Do Something award. Go to [Maggie</a> Doyne wins $100,000! | Do Something](<a href=“http://www.dosomething.org/awards/maggie]Maggie”>http://www.dosomething.org/awards/maggie) to find out more. I have corresponded with Maggie personally and this last spring children from the K-2 computer class I teach used a “shapes” program to create pictures her kids could color, so I was more than thrilled to see she won the big one. Hopefully you will be too.</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks for that link.</p>
<p>Looks like a great project, and an interesting organization.</p>
<p>What vicariousparent said.</p>
<p>I think I voted for Alex, but she’s amazing too. Congrats to her!</p>
<p>"In the foothills of the Himalayas, on a rocky path with a young, barefoot girl by her side, Maggie Doyne experienced one of what she calls her Jersey Girl moments.</p>
<p>Doyne, who built and runs a home for orphans in Surkhet, Nepal, had walked two days to get to this remote mountain village to find 9-year-old Karma, who spent her days tending animals on a farm. Doyne convinced Karma’s relatives to let her bring the girl to Surkhet, where she could go to school, and as the two set off, Doyne realized the girl had nothing to take with her.</p>
<p>“Where are her things?” Doyne asked out loud. “Where is her shawl?”</p>
<p>Recounting the story from her perch on the sofa in her family’s comfortable Mendham home, Doyne shakes her head. “It didn’t occur to me that this girl really didn’t have anything. She didn’t have any shoes. I’m in my fleece jacket and my $170 hiking boots. With orthotics in them.”
Doyne, a fresh-faced, wide-eyed child of the suburbs, still has many moments like this, when her mind simply can’t reconcile the promise of a young girl with the crippling poverty and meager expectations that surround her.</p>
<p>When she had talked to Karma’s relatives about the opportunities she would have in Surkhet, her aunt wondered if it wasn’t too late. “She’s been working her whole life,” the woman told her. “Where were you when she was a baby?”</p>
<p>She did a quick mental calculation. When Karma was born, Doyne was about 10 years old."
[Maggie</a> Doyne - NJ.com: I Am NJ](<a href=“http://blog.nj.com/iamnj/2009/01/maggie_doyne.html]Maggie”>Maggie Doyne | NJ.com)</p>
<p>We too often forget how the much of the world lives. A big shocker is to see folks in Third World Countries, many years later. Many times, they have aged a lot more than most of us have. In some of those countries, middle aged for us is old age, getting to the edge of the life expectancy. </p>
<p>It is often a difficult balancing act when one intervenes in such lives. When things are on such a delicate balance, a lot of things can be toppled down in what appears to be a positive change.</p>
<p>A book that I have really enjoyed is “Three Cups of Tea”, where a young man has made it his life mission to set up schools in places that have none.</p>