Richard Renaldi’s Touching Strangers Comes to Cincinnati
Richard Renaldi Touching Strangers photography project
I first heard about Richard Renaldi’s photography project several years ago when I saw it featured on CBS News, and thought it was such a brilliant, fun idea to capture the human connection. Since 2007, with his large format 8-by-10-inch view camera in tow, Richard has been going up to complete strangers and asking them to get closer than comfort. For a few short moments those people who had never seen eachother before interact as two strangers typically do not do. Their expressions are priceless.
And now through June 27, ArtWorks Cincinnati has brought Richard here to do a Cincinnati version of Touching Strangers. So, if you get approached by a man and a camera, you just may be about to get to know someone new on a whole new level.
I can’t wait to see what Richard finds here!
Indian Hill High School Student Journeys To Taiwan
Andrea Francisco lives in Cincinnati and is a soon-to-be-senior at Indian Hill High School. She will also be interning with me this fall to share her thoughts through my blog. I will have more information about her later, but wanted to share this letter she had written about a journey she is taking this summer. What a fabulous, life changing event for her!
Hello,
My name is Andrea Francisco, and I am a soon-to-be senior at Indian Hill High School who is about to go on an exchange trip to Taiwan. I’m very excited to explore the world outside my small suburban bubble and see what the lives of people halfway around the world are like. In just a few days, thirty students from schools around Cincinnati and I will embark on a journey to the island of Taiwan, which is just off the coast of China. More specifically, we will be going to New Taipei City, Taiwan, which is a part of the Cincinnati USA Sister City Association. A few other Sister Cities to Cincinnati include Nancy in France and Kharkiv in Ukraine.
Over the course of two weeks, we hope to make lasting friendships and memories with the people of Taiwan and especially our host families. All thirty-one of us are assigned our own host family, who will show us around Taiwan and bring us to their local school for a few days, as the Taiwanese students are still in school. Also, we will have opportunities to visit a few of the many interesting things to see in Taiwan, including the TAChou Yacht Company, Everlight Electronics, Pingxi Old Street, Fort Zeelandia, Eternal Golden Castle, Chikan Towers, Taichung Fengjia Night Market, and many more, which are also hard to pronounce. Although I have taken Mandarin Chinese, the official language of Taiwan, for three consecutive years at school, I still struggle to read and speak this rich language correctly. Thankfully, the Taiwanese family I am staying with can speak and write much more English than I am able to with Chinese, so we will be able to communicate. Despite the language barrier, I hope to enjoy this trip wholeheartedly and embrace the many cultural differences that I may come across.
After months of preparation, all that separates our group of thirty-one students and twelve chaperones from New Taipei City are a pair of three hour-long flights and a lengthy thirteen hour-long flight to Taiwan. We will be going over the Pacific Ocean, which may be scary for the majority of the students going on the trip, as less than five of us have flown internationally and nearly ten of us have never flown west of the Mississippi. Overall, I am very excited to see New Taipei City and create lasting memories with my host family and the students going on this trip!
Andrea
University of Cincinnati Student Raising Money Through Art
Lizzi Egbers is in her final year at the University of Cincinnati DAAP for Interior Design; and later this summer she is heading to Casablanca, Chile with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village Program. She is looking forward to helping build homes for families of children with disabilities so that they can return from the hospital to fully accessible homes.
“I love going to design school and I think it’s an amazing profession to bring beauty to the world, but to me that’s two-fold between design and service. I chose to partake in a Habitat for Humanity Global trip because as an interior designer you learn how important the space you live is and how much it affects you. Being able to create a place that can be called home for a family that has already been through so many hardships is really uplifting to me,” she wrote me.
Here is how you can help. To raise money for her trip, Lizzi has asked 29 talented people to create a piece of art based on a word she gave them. All of the words collectively create a poem that has inspired Lizzi’s thoughts about service. The art is being sold in a silent auction at a show June 18 from 6 to 9 pm at Rhinegeist Brewery (1910 Elm St) in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine.
Dear Hero Collection Inspires At 911 Memorial Museum
What were you doing on that horrific morning of September 11, 2001? I think for any of us who are old enough to have comprehended that day, we will never forget.
Tanya Hoggard, a Cincinnati flight attendant, was on a layover in France as the attacks struck the World Trade Center. It was a week later when she was able to return t
o the United States and something inside her compelled her to see the destruction firsthand. Her photography skills helped her grasp the magnitude of what had happened, feel it and begin her healing process.
When Tanya arrived in New York, she knew she had to volunteer at Ground Zero. There she met first responders, listened to their heartwarming and heart wrenching descriptions of letters and artwork received from children around the world – many ad
dressed to ‘Dear Hero’.
“It made my heart race and my eyes water when I saw the healing power these letters and drawings had,” said Tanya. “I watched children unknowingly become heroes to their heroes. I decided that this emotion needed to be captured and cherished.”
She realized that these innocent letters would soon become a poignant part of a day that changed America forever. Tanya’s mission began, and to date, the “Dear Hero” collection has garnered more than three tons of history and memorabilia. The Dear Hero Collection has been donated to the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City and stands on the spot of the former World Trade Center.
“What these children wrote is a part of history. Teachers are using it for education. Other museums worldwide will borrow from it. It’s where it belongs. With any luck the children who created it will be able to see it and learn how inspiring they were to the rest of us,” Tanya said.
Thanks Tanya…for reminding us, that even amidst life’s darkest tragedies there is inspiration to be learned at the hearts and hands of everyday heroes.
Magnified Giving Teaches Youth About Philanthropy
I am so fortunate that my public relations work allows me to help such truly special causes. Magnified Giving is among them. The nonprofit works with schools to teach young people about being educated philanthropists. I have been helping them with their recent year end awards events.
Below is more about them…
Magnified Giving Awards Event
They are from different neighborhoods diverse by ethnicity, cultures, religions and economic backgrounds. And for the past year, they were the more than 2500 students in groups from 50 regional schools who were given more than $1000 by Magnified Giving to extensively research, debate, discuss, and ultimately come to a decision on a worthy cause for whom to grant that money. Some also volunteered their time and even raised additional funds to give to organizations that speak to their hearts.
It was a process that taught students leadership and life skills, how to work together as a team toward a common goal, and how to be wise donors to causes important to them. Before filled auditoriums at four events, those students walked on stage to share their experiences and present checks that collectively totaled more than $75,000.
Ian Dollenmayer with Roger Grein of Magnified Giving
Ian Dollenmayer, a 2012 graduate of Covington Catholic High School and Magnified Giving alumni, shared his thoughts at one of the events.
“Looking at this program’s title, I believe it is that first word—“magnified”—that truly makes this experience unique. What are magnified are our perceptions, our knowledge, and ourselves. Discovering charities around this area requires us to exit our comfort zone, to journey beyond the conceptual academia of the classroom into the harsh pragmatics of the world around us. Outside the walls of our schools, we find a world that is plagued with problems, but we also are able to see working solutions. We see what it is that different organizations are trying to alleviate and how they are going about doing so.
Above all else, we meet people. Some are the ones afflicted by the ills of an imperfect world, while others are the ones trying to help. It is these meetings and relationships that have the capacity to fundamentally change us. We see in those around us a struggle to make ends meet and live healthy lives, and we in turn see those fighting to give those very things.
What I believe this ultimately gives us, at least what it has given me, is vision. We are among the fortunate, so it is our duty to use the advantages given to us to assist those who are in need. This vision allows us to see where our advantages can be used, where our fortune can be shared, where we can change someone’s world. This day, I challenge us all to use the lessons we have learned from the Magnified Giving program as we advance forward in our lives because no matter where we go, no matter what we become, these are the ideas that can carry our world to a better tomorrow. Be you a politician, a doctor, an accountant, a biologist, an engineer, an artist, or any one of a million different professions and vocations, the world will still need improvement. People will still need our help. It is here our mission begins, and it begins today.”
Roger Grein, founder and CEO of Magnified Giving, shared this note he received from one of the participating teachers – Heather Campbell, national board certified teacher at Butler Tech at Lakota East High School.
“I work with some kids who have been disengaged in school, have low self-esteem, have been sometimes marginalized by our education system, and are often times challenged by overwhelming circumstances. I am blessed to have the opportunity and support to teach these students in ‘my way’ through ‘my methods’.
Today as my students had a contentious, intense debate- on task for 1 ½ hours- I realized just what an important part Magnified Giving has played in their process of evolving, scholastically and on a personal level. I was outside of the room, but I could not help but hear them- they expressed their thoughts, their passions eloquently and respectfully. They called me in when they needed help in organizing their thoughts, but I merely listened and summarized what I heard. I did not put my two cents in. I have never seen this group- individually or together take something so seriously. EVERY one of them weighed in. EVERY one of them had definite thoughts and contributions to the discussion.
I assured them that they could not make a wrong decision. In the end, they felt the difficult bending that sometimes must come when a group cannot meet unanimity, but must come to consensus. I think they will volunteer for other organizations who did not receive their award. They know now that awareness is the first step, and that they can be messengers.
Most importantly, I feel that they truly were affected by this process and have become more evolved, more aware, kinder citizens of their community and their world. For this, I am truly grateful to you.”
If you believe in the cause of Magnified Giving, you can support their work with a monetary donation. Please visit http://www.MagnifiedGiving.org to learn more.
To view more photos from the Magnified Awards events, please click here.
