CBC 2009 Year End Update & Board Openings

Date: 2009-12-15 17:18:07   Author: CBC

Hello friends,

Well, it has been an amazing year for CBC projects.  There have been several projects this year, but two really stand out as amazing experiences.

In August, we completed a masonry patio at Missoula Urban Demonstration Project (MUD).  MUD is a wonderful project bringing skills for sustainable living, a tool library, and other workshops to the Missoula community and the volunteers were grateful to have the opportunity to help a cause like this.  

Designed by an architect and built by two masons, a landscaper, and more than a dozen other volunteers, this artistic patio project was designed and built by 100% volunteer help with 100% donated materials (thank you Mutual Materials).  As we set out to do this project, the two masons involved realized that we had quite an undertaking at hand for all of the unskilled labor involved, and yet as time went on, we were humbled to experience what a beautiful  thing could be achieved by anyone who sets their mind to it.  Despite our moments of doubt, in the end, this project came together with amazing results, a-la “Pillars of the Earth.”  After this project was finished, they had a huge party where the new patio was put to use and where the volunteers signed a golden trowel.

Just after we finished this project, someone said that they couldn’t get their house repaired with volunteers as they didn't think it was possible.  I simply told them that all things are possible to he who believes and later sent them a link to the photos for the MUD project, completed with all donated materials and volunteer labor.  It was a glorious occasion to experience such a radical change in a person’s whole way of looking at things, and each of the volunteers involved in this project contributed to make this possible.

In October, we did a 2 week project at a new meditation center in Northern California.  Working 10-12 hour days and doing such things as stone, block, and landscaping work, we finished it within an hour of the orientation for the first course!  At one point, there were 18 volunteers present working in solidarity to get this project done, along with many local contractors and laborers.  One of the contributors who helped a lot at this project was Francisco, who operated a plate tamper, drove a tractor, and did electrical and insulation work.  Francisco, better known as Pancho, is always an inspiration at any event or project.

You can see our project in Facebook here.

Our board member and main contributor, Emma, returned this month from a two month stay in India, where she has been doing service work with Home of Hope.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Emma Olson, Pancho R.S., Nate Oliver, Jan DeWever, and Charles at Tech Parade Designs, all of whom have contributed a great deal in various aspects to the project this year.

That’s it for 2009! 

*If you have been inspired by this project, feel free to contact us, become involved, or make a donation.  The CBC is a pay it forward project, operating entirely on the contributions of people who support what we do.

*We are now inviting members to join our working board of directors, which is in development.  If you are interested in joining our board and have skills and passion to bring to the project, contact us!

Tree and the Free Farm Stand

Date: 2009-03-14 00:33:43   Author: CBC

You can see the version of this article complete with links to all of the projects and info mentioned herein at this page http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=2028

It's all about Family

Date: 2009-03-10 15:59:12   Author: CBC

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/03/10/budget.irpt/index.html

A great article. This is the growing trend in America - a remarkably rapid, global re-balancing of the discrepancies in the world economy, and a reemergence of community (and hopefully family)

Inspiration

Date: 2009-01-31 18:20:20   Author: CBC

"Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Intense love does not measure; it just gives. Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other - It does not matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other...We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do." ~Mother Teresa

"Were we to love none who have imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love." ~Thomas Jefferson

"To be still and to follow our soul. That's the antidote for intellectual games and for broken hearts."
~Pancho Ramos Stierle, Nov 11 2009

"My mother superior told me an inspiring story about Mother Teresa. She was out begging - when a man spit in her cupped palm. She closed in and drew it toward her chest, saying "That is for me; Now something for my children", and holding out the other palm."
~Emma O., Nov 6 2009

"What the human can achieve in life is profound. They can also put great limitations on themselves preventing that."
~Nick Taber, Sept 12 2009

"Align your every day life with your values… and you can’t go wrong."
~Barron Reyes, Sept 7, 2009

"Let your body be worn and your soul will be renewed"
~Elliot Reed, Aug 2009

"...If you give a person purpose and you give them value, then you give them life. That's really all there is to it."
~Tim Akimoff, July 2009

"The greatest way we can be of service is to do what makes us come alive."
~Silas Hagerty, May 2009

"Focus outward, towards creating beauty and joy around you, and there's no way that beauty and joy cannot come inside. Then happiness is no illusion."
~Mariette Fourmeaux, Mar 2009

"You create your own reactions. You have got to bless to be blessed. I don't let any enemies get to me."
~Rick in SF, 2008-2009

"Fortunately, exhaustion and positivity aren't correlated. :) You could be exhausted and still bubbling with love." ~Nipun Mehta, Aug 2009

"When all of us were born, we were given a bucket of love. We can splash it around everywhere and it will never run out, but if we hide it in the closet, then when we go to get it, the bucket will be empty. We can never give too much love."

"The world is full of amazing people. Interesting people are all around us; all we need to do is stop and notice - we don't have to look for them."  

"All you wanna do is do the things that need to be done in the places where they need to be done. Don't worry about me or what I am doing, just go out and change the world."

~Howard E. Lyman, Oct 2008

"If you want to be a rebel, be kind; humankind, be both."
~Pancho Ramos Stierle

"As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in our being able to remake our world as in being able to remake ourselves" ~Gandhi

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." ~Martin Luther King Jr., in Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others? ~Martin Luther King Jr.

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn." ~Emmerson

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  ~Howard Thurman

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence."  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

"It's all really very simple. You don't have to choose between being kind to yourself and others. It's one and the same." ~Piero Ferrucci

"I think the world is so full of fabulous things, why would anybody settle for less?"

"I think we have the opportunity to create the peace in ourselves that we want to see in the world, now and forever." ~Ashton F., Oct 2008

"I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle." ~Robert Fulgrum

"Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful." ~Dr. Venkataswamy, founder of the Aravind eye hospital.

"Live freely and love passionately." ~Me 2008-09-07

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined." ~H.D. Thoreau

"Have a healthy disregard for the impossible." ~Larry Page

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Howard Thurman

"Love ought to be represented more by deeds than by words." ~From the wall of St. Ignatius Basilica, 2008-09-30

"Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in." ~From the table at Karma Kitchen (a quote from Leonard Cohen), 2008-09-28

"Sincerity is the way of heaven." ~Meng Tze

"Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves." ~Blaise Pascal

"Open your heart to the people." ~Q.L.

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." ~H.D. Thoreau

"Give all to love; Obey thy heart." ~R.W. Emerson

"What a great thing it would be if we in our busy lives could retire into ourselves each day for at least a couple of hours and prepare our minds to listen in to the voice of the great Silence. The Divine radio is always singing if we could only make ourselves ready to listen to it, but its impossible to listen without silence." ~Gandhi

"Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it."

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone." ~H.D. Thoreau

"The reward for a thing well done is to have done it." ~R.W. Emerson

"We are co-creators, taking care of that which has been given to us to care for, being active in creating and forming instead of consuming and destroying. The world and all of its components are connected, no matter how much we try to separate it. All that we have comes from the Earth. And so, we learn to see the connections 'between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving.'" ~Moltmann

"There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else." ~Peyton Conway March

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. you must remember... it is sacred. And you must teach your children... that it is sacred." ~From Ray Jardine's website.

"Persons who love nature find a common basis for understanding people of other countries, since the love of nature is universal among men of all nations." ~Dag Hammarskjold