Echo Montgomery Garrett's Blog, page 4
November 23, 2012
Hope but No Home for the Holidays
Most of us look forward to the holidays with delight. This time of year means sharing happy times with family and friends. But for many young adults who have come out of foster care, and older teens in foster care, the holidays are a painful reminder of their lack of relationships. When Sam Bracken — whose story is told in our book “My Orange Duffel Bag” (www.MyOrangeDuffelBag.com) — came to Georgia Tech to play football and get an education, he was homeless. Every college break he struggled with the worry of where he would eat and sleep.
I was shocked to learn that 30 years later, the elite 3% of all kids who have been in foster care and manage to make it to college as well as homeless youth are still facing the same problem. When colleges close dorms and cafeterias, these students who have overcome unbelievable odds are left to fend for themselves once more. Last year about a month before Thanksgiving, Carl Danbury, the publisher of “Points North” magazine, was interviewing me about what the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation (www.ODBF.org) is doing to help older kids in foster care and homeless youth to further their education. I gave this situation as one example of the sort of barriers to success that our kids face and that I believe we as a community of caring adults should be able to resolve.
By the time I got back to my office, an email was waiting for me with the momentous news that Chateau Elan Winery & Resort had agreed to host up to 20 young people in Georgia who were in college but had nowhere to go for the Thanksgiving holiday. Zooma Atlanta, which was being held at the resort, had already named ODBF its charity racing partner, and I was running there that weekend. Everything fell into place.
We ended up with 16 young people at Holidays of Hope who are in college but would have been alone or homeless over the holiday break because they came from foster care. The resort took care of everything for six days. Delta helped get one young lady back to Georgia from the university she attends in Miami. The first night two of the young women shared that the prior Thanksgiving they had spent alone in their respective dorm rooms. One had dined on a bowl of white rice; the other, popcorn. Another young man told those gathered that he’d never gotten to celebrate Thanksgiving before. He was 19. Much of my own family also joined us for Holidays of Hope along with Carl Danbury and his family. My brother Kevin Montgomery, who is one of ODBF’s national spokespersons, came to perform a free concert that Friday night. Bill Liss of 11 Alive News arranged for Tanger Outlets to present every one of the young people attending with a $100 gift card so that they could get something for the holidays.
I pray that by next holiday season we will have something figured out where kids in that position will all have families or at least hotels in which to spend college breaks. Together we can make a difference.
Here’s an article by journalist Mickey Goodman about the event: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Mickey-goodman/foster-care_b_1144302.html
Photo caption: Echo Garrett, president and co-founder of ODBF, with Elena Taylor, one of the Holidays of Hope attendees, on the morning of the Zooma Atlanta race.
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November 12, 2012
Respect the Writer
I’m from a family of songwriters/singers. I was in a leadership class several years ago, and the topic was ethics. The moderator asked who thought it was wrong to download music for free (this is when those ripoff sites were first proliferating). I was the only one who raised my hand. I was shocked and appalled. These were educated people, who were tops in their respective fields. But not one them considered what it took to create that song that they so easily downloaded for free or burned an illegal copy for their friends. When you download music for free — unless the artist is offering it as a gift or incentive — you are invalidating the work that went into that project.
I was infuriated recently to learn from one of my author friends that she has been a member of an online bookclub whose members have been requesting the PDFs of the books they are reading to be shared with them — of course, meaning that the author loses those sales. She asked online what she should do? Turn them in to the publishers of the authors who were being ripped off? Quietly leave the bookclub? That kind of sharing, which has gutted the music industry, was exactly what authors feared would happen to our work. Many of my fellow authors have found their books replicated on unauthorized sites being offered for pennies. When we initially self-published “My Orange Duffel Bag,” I was frustrated by all the copies that started appearing from sellers on Amazon. Our book was expensive to print and that all came out of our pockets. I was even more angry when I contacted one of the sellers and found out that they were buying “lost” boxes of our book from the United States Post Office at a monthly auction. For every five boxes of books, my co-author Sam Bracken would ship to me, one or two would mysteriously go missing — despite being clearly labeled inside and out. I never could find out where these auctions were being held, so our own government agency was legally ripping us off, too.
I’ve been writing for magazines, newspapers and websites for 30 years. It’s not uncommon to find a company or individual using my work without paying for it, and I’ve read that many of my fellow journalists have experienced the same thing. Big corporations will use something in a corporate newsletter and think nothing of it. Chasing down all of these infringers is time-consuming for a person who often works on spec and only gets paid once something is published or accepted.
At a famous photography show in New York, the organizers have had to ask people with sunglasses or glasses to let them look at the glasses, because so many were using tiny hidden cameras to scan the art and then have the images reproduced in China. My husband Kevin Garrett (www.KevinGarrett.com) has turned down offers to sell his fine art images and mixed media pieces in countries known to have weak laws protecting images. Once again, artists’ abilities to make a living are being seriously compromised.
I guarantee you that making a living in the arts is hard enough without having your work ripped off. But yet it’s become so commonplace. The current models in the music industry are not sustainable for the artists producing the music, and the publishing industry is in complete disarray. Amazon has so much power, it’s scary. Our book “My Orange Duffel Bag” retails for $23.95, and yet Amazon immediately slashed the price. At times, it’s been as low as $12.74 on Amazon. How do they decide that? Independent booksellers have a hard time competing with that, because they don’t have any room to make a profit if they match Amazon’s prices. I guess that’s the point.
I love what I do. I love the gift of telling stories that inspire. I just want to be compensated fairly for my skill, dedication, experience and my passion like any other professional. Moving hearts to action for a living — that’s what I do.
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November 8, 2012
Change a Life: Buy One and Get One to Give
One more favor: If you’ve read our book, please post a review on Amazon. It helps our ranking, plus oddly, Amazon recently removed some of our reviews. http://www.amazon.com/My-Orange-Duffel-Bag-Journey/dp/0307984885/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
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November 7, 2012
Voices from those Who Were in Foster Care
Take a few moments to watch the first interview he’s posted from the 2012 tour. Kevin wrote this entry on his Facebook page: This is the first interview that i’ve posted from this year’s 50 States in 50 Days tour. Richard was invited to the show by the host Chuck Bedwell. They coach football together. Chuck had no idea he had been in foster care. Richard sat alone in the back, and I noticed him crying when I showed the video from the 2010 50 States tour…..he approached me after the show and complimented what we were doing. I asked if I could interview him. He was told he would never graduate. He was not allowed to play sports because he was a foster kid…….yet did both eventually. Truly inspiring, and I think a God’s wink moment.
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October 29, 2012
Generosity Out of Poverty
Years ago my husband Kevin brought home a Russian soldier he’d met who was staying at the YMCA on the Upper West Side in New York City. This was before the coup, and the man had come for a conference that he only learned was canceled once he arrived. Communication was poor in the USSR, so he’d never been notified.
With a toddler underfoot, I didn’t have time to go to the store, so I quickly threw together a simple meal of spaghetti, meat sauce, a salad and bread to share with him. As a perfectionist, I was feeling apologetic for not having something more on hand. He acted like it was a feast and was overflowing with gratitude. As it happened, I was leaving the next week to fly to Leningrad and then Moscow with a group of journalists. We all had assignments on doing business in the USSR. I asked lots of questions about Russia and solicited his advice on what to bring. He emphasized dressing as simply as possible.
Our new friend kindly contacted his girlfriend to alert her that I was coming. Once I was over there, I was astonished at the poverty I saw everywhere. It was overwhelming.
Our hosts were obviously trying to roll out the proverbial red carpet (pun intended) for us, but food was scarce. I lost eight lbs. in the course of a week. One woman at the hotel where we were staying said that she’d gotten off earlier that day to go stand in line for three hours in order to purchase a bag of oranges – half of which were rotten.
When I made it to Moscow, I called the number that our new friend had given us for his girlfriend. She made the enormous effort to meet me on a corner, and when she arrived, she had a bouquet of flowers for me. By this time, I knew how much most people struggled, so I was stunned by her kindness and generosity to a stranger. And weeks later in the mail, I opened a package from Russia. The Russian military man had sent us two beautiful, hand-painted lacquered spoons.
When Kevin visited India recently, he encountered a flower vendor in one of the stalls. The elderly man possessed a certain dignity, so Kevin communicated that he’d like to take his photograph — in sharp contrast to the many tourists who would just stroll by and snap away. The man agreed, and afterwards Kevin knelt by him and showed him the back of the camera. As he started to leave, the man offered Kevin a perfect single red rose. Later Kevin learned that in India a red rose symbolizes respect.
I’ve noticed over and over again that the people who are often the most generous are those who give out of their poverty and the overflow of their hearts. I am reminded of Jesus’ praise for the poor widow who gave all that she had.
Photo credit: KevinGarrett.com
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October 24, 2012
Book Signing at Auburn University
I will be signing copies of “My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change” on Saturday, October 27, from 1-3 pm at the Auburn University Bookstore in Haley Center before the football game. I studied journalism at Auburn. I’m especially excited, because Susan Wilson Detwiler has arranged for a reunion of 10 years of pledge classes of Phi Mus. My pledge class was 1978. If you are in the area, please stop by and War Eagle! To my fellow Auburn alums, watch for the November issue of the alumni magazine. I’ll be featured in it.
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October 18, 2012
Emotional Clearing
Over the last year and a half, Kevin and I have been seeing Dr. Carl Amodio (@DrCarlAmodio) of Whole Body Health (http://www.wholebodyhealth.org/) in Roswell, GA, for some health issues. Kevin deals with chronic pain since being in an auto accident several years ago. Dr. Carl is one of only 50 applied kinesiologists in the country to achieve the ranking of diplomate. He’s also a chiropractor. We’re now working on a book together, because I’ve never met anyone like him in terms of healing. Every time I see him, I learn something new, and I consider myself a knowledgeable person when it comes to alternative health.
Dr. Carl approaches the body from a holistic perspective — emotionally, nutritionally and structurally. I’m learning so much about how our emotions are so tied in with what goes on with us physically. He does a neuro-emotional clearing technique that has done remarkable things for us. Just this week I felt like I could hardly breathe and felt constriction underneath my left shoulder blade. My yoga practice and Zumba did nothing to decrease the pain, so I went to see Dr. Carl. I’d been under a lot of stress the last few weeks, and so I wasn’t surprised when his testing found that there was an emotional root to my pain. I described a current situation that I thought was the culprit. The emotion was affecting my lungs, and what he found was grief. Given what the situation had brought up in my mind that diagnosis made perfect sense.
Then he found that my grief was connected to a prior event. A muscle test of my body told him that it was an event that occurred when I was age 38. As soon as he said it, I knew exactly what he was talking about. That’s when I learned that I’d gone through premature, trauma-induced menopause at age 33 and subsequently went through five years of misdiagnosis from different doctors. Although my husband and I already had two beautiful sons, learning that I could never have any more children was an emotional shock as was the way the doctor broke the news: “You look great on the outside, but your reproductive organs are like an 80-year-old woman’s.”
Nice. In that instant, I felt old, undesirable and confused. I’d experienced weight gain, irritability, lethargy and all the symptoms of menopause, but menopause hadn’t even come up in my mind as a possibility. None of my friends were going through it, so I had no frame of reference. Adding to my insecurity during that period was a comment from a woman who was leading the ministry at the church I was attending at the time. She informed me that I was the leader of the “fat, frumpy” women’s Bible study group. My self-image was assaulted.
Sometimes it really is all in our heads. Our minds are like computers, and an event or relationship can trigger a file folder to open. When that file folder holds a negative emotion, it often manifests into something physical. In my case, it caused my ribs to spasm, go out of place and constrict my lungs – literally leaving me breathless with grief. In a matter of minutes, Dr. Carl took me through a simple emotional release technique that allowed me to delete that file. I am so glad that I knew about Dr. Carl, who also serves on the Board of the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation (www.ODBF.org). Otherwise I’d probably just endured the pain, or gone to a traditional doctor who would have prescribed anti-spasmodic medications – or worse – pain medications.
I’m all about getting to the heart of the matter, and I’m grateful to find a doctor who believes in the same principle.
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October 15, 2012
The Importance of Belonging
I’ve never considered myself much of a joiner. In high school, I didn’t neatly fit into one of the cliques that seem to develop at every school. I wasn’t a jock, I wasn’t a cheerleader, I wasn’t the brilliant tech geek. I tried to make friends in every group.
When I got to college – as the first in my family to attend – all of that changed. I felt completely lost. I didn’t know hardly anyone at Auburn University, which was a six-hour drive from my hometown of Nashville. I heard about sorority rush and decided that it might be a quick way to meet people and make new friends.
I ended up joining Phi Mu, and in that environment as a clueless college student, I found being part of something comforting. There was a camaraderie that I enjoyed, and it gave me a little bit of a social base.
Fast forward and years later, I still keep in touch with many of my sorority sisters. We have shared experiences and history. Auburn Phi Mu alum Susan Wilson Detwiler has put together a reunion of 10 years’ worth of pledge classes over the weekend of Oct. 27’s Auburn home game. I haven’t been back in years, so I look forward to seeing everybody. The campus bookstore is hosting me for a book signing that day for “My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change” – time to be announced once the university releases the game start time.
Thinking about what being part of something meant to me – especially as an insecure, scared college freshman – I understand why being an Orange Duffel Bag Foundation graduate is so important to the kids who we serve with our coaching. Many of them have missed out so many of the social opportunities that are naturally available to kids who aren’t in foster care. The rules that teens in foster care live under mean that they often miss school field trips, they cannot spend the night with a friend, they may not get to participate in after school activities or sports. The sense of belonging to a community of people who have a shared history can be empowering. We’ve seen a support system spring up among the classes who go through out 12-week coaching program. There’s a sense of pride and that same sense of camaraderie that I remember feeling at a time when I needed it.
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October 13, 2012
Save the date! Two upcoming ‘My Orange Duffel Bag’ book signing dates for October
I’ll be signing copies of “My Orange Duffel Bag” and “My Roadmap” at the Book Exchange booth–owned by the gorgeous Cat Blanco–on Saturday, Oct. 13 at the Mistletoe Market, sponsored by the Junior League and held in the Cobb Civic Center. This market has everything! I’ll be there between 10-11 am signing. Please come out and get some of your holiday shopping done.
On Saturday, October 27, I’ll be signing copies of both books at the Auburn University Bookstore at my alma mater on game day. The time is yet to be announced. My husband Kevin Garrett (www.KevinGarrett.com) is an Auburn alum, too, and contributed more than 60 original images to “My Orange Duffel Bag.” I’ll be featured in the next issue of Auburn’s alumni magazine, which comes out in mid-November.
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September 21, 2012
Our Book Built into Curriculum
North Carolina-based Louisburg College, the nation’s oldest two-year college with a 220-year history, has adopted “My Orange Duffel Bag” as its First-Experience book for all incoming freshmen. It has also built an entire curriculum around the seven coaching principles upon which our coaching program for ODBF (www.ODBF.org) is based.
