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http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.htmlCopyright 2010 The New York Times

By STEPHANIE STROM

FOR 11 nights last month,several dozen homelesspeople slept on plasticsheeting and soiled blan-

kets outside the gleaming new$500 million headquarters of theBill & Melinda Gates Foundationin Seattle. Their objective was a

$30,000 grant to help reopen shel-ters that had been closed by cutsin government funds.

The demonstration outside thefoundation, the wealthiest in theworld with $37 billion under itscontrol, illustrated the gap be-tween those who say charitablegiving should be directed at indi-viduals in need a street-levelapproach, sometimes disdainful-ly called checkbook philanthropy and those whose generosityruns toward big-ticket items likeexperimental programs, cutting-edge university science labs orwhat Doris Buffett, Warren E.Buffetts older sister, calls S.O.B.gifts donations that supportsymphonies, opera and ballet.

As Americas needs grow, phi-lanthropy and how it is carriedout are being questioned more

closely.Eventually, the government re-

lented and reversed the cuts inSeattle, and the protest ended.Meanwhile, the Gates Founda-tion noted that it had spent $47million on transitional housingand homeless families in the Pa-cific Northwest and had commit-ted $67 millionmore to the issue.

Were trying to move up-stream to a systems level to ei-ther prevent family homeless-ness before it happens or to end itas soon as possible after it hap-pens, said Melissa Milburn, aspokeswoman for the foundation.

As the ranks of the needygrow, so does the need for char-ities that put food on a poor fam-ilys table, a roof over a homelessmans head or a coat on the backof a child whose mother is in pris-on, or for the charities that pro-vide dental work for a womanwithout health insurance.

The number of Americans liv-ing below the poverty line 46.2million is the highest it hasbeen since the Census Bureau be-gan collecting such data. Medianincomes are declining, and col-lege graduates cant find jobs.The gap between the haves andhave-notshas widened sharply.

Yet for the last three years,state and local governments haveslashed budgets that addresshomelessness, school nutrition,substance abuse and a range ofother social services. In somecases, money is cut outright; inothers, governments defer pay-ments for months. Still others

Continued on Page F6

JESSE LENZ

When

NeedsHit

Home

PEANUT BUTTER PLUS

Abbott Laboratories is help-ing Haitians build a self-sus-

taining enterprise making anutrition supplement.

By Duff Wilson, Page 8.

BEN DEPP FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

F1NY

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

BENADIR HOSPITAL is achunky block of a buildingin downtown Mogadishu,

built in the 1970s by the Chinese.It hascracked windows, ceilingfans that dont turn and long,ghostly hallways that stink of hu-man excrement and diesel fuel all that the nurses have to washthe floors. Each morning, legionsof starving people trudge in, thevictims of Somalias spreading

famine. Many havejourneyedfrom hundreds of miles away.They spent every last dollar andevery last calorie tomake it here,and when they arrive, they sim-ply collapse on the floor. Bena-dirs few doctors and nurses areall volunteers and all exhausted,and many wear tattered, bloodiedsmocks. The minute I walked in, Ihad a bad feeling I would findwhat I was looking for.

As the East Africa correspond-ent for The New York Times, myassignment has been to chroniclethe current famine in Somalia,one of the worst humanitariandisasters of the last two decades,hitting one of the most forlornand troubled countries in moderntimes. My job is to seek out thesuffering and write about it andto analyze the causes and espe-

cially the response, which hasbeen woefully inadequate by allaccounts,though not totallyhopeless.

In Benadir, there is a room fullof old blue cots, one after another,where the sickest children lie. Oneach bed, a little life is passing

away. Some children cry, butmost are quiet. The skin on theirfeet and hands is peeling off. Alltheir bones show, like skeletons

covered in parchment. I wasstanding just a few feet awayfrom Kufow Ali Abdi, a destitutenomad, as he looked down on hisdying daughter, and when thetime came, there was no mystery,no fuss.

I watched Mr. Kufowcarefullyunhook the I.V.that was attachedto her shriveled body and thenwrap her up in blue cloth. Hername was Kadija and she was 3years old and probably not morethan 20 pounds. Mr. Kufowwalked out of the room,lightlycarrying Kadijas body in hisarms.

At least five childrendied thatday in Benadir. At a camp not faraway, where people are housed intwig huts and stare listlessly at

Somalia

Tests

Limits

Of Aid

Continued on Page F2

Its enough to makeagencies give up but they havent.

The Mobile Pantry, the

methods of Dr. Ignacio

Ponseti, the making of

Nourimanba and the

publicists who help charities

put on the Ritz.

nytimes.com/giving

ONLINE: SLIDE SHOWSROLLING IN THE GROCERIES

Like many poor neighbor-hoods, the Germantown sec-

tion of Quincy, Mass., has nosupermarket, but it does

have the Mobile Pantry.

By John Hanc, Page 4.

NEST EGG

The task of managing MarkZuckerbergs $100 million

gift for Newarks troubledschool system.

By Jodi Rudoren, Page 11.

Y
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F2 NY THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011

the road, hoping for an aid truck to ar-rive, I was told that 10 had died. AcrossSomalia, its hundreds a day.

Much of Africa, Somalia in particular,has had a tough time since independ-ence in the 1960s, becoming synony-mous with staggering levels of miseryand leading many people to simplyshrug and mutterhere we go againwhen they hear of a new drought or anew war. But this current crisis in So-malia is on a different order of magni-

tude than the typical calamity, if there issuch a thing. Tens of thousands of peo-ple have already died, and as many as750,000 could soon starve to death, theUnited Nations says, the equivalent ofthe entire populations of Miami andPittsburgh.

One reason the situation has gottenthis grim is that most of the big Westernaid agencies and charities, the oneswith the technical expertiseand so-called surge capacity to rapidly distrib-ute aid, have been blocked from work-ing in the famine zones. At a time whenSomalia is suffering from the worstdrought in 60 years, a ruthless militantgroup called the Shabab, which is essen-tially a Qaeda franchise, is on such ananti-Western tirade that it has bannedWestern music, Western dress, soccer,bras and even Western food aid. TheShabab are a heavily armed complica-tion that differentiates this crisis fromprevious famines in Somalia, Ethiopiaor Sudan and f rom other recent naturaldisasters like the tsunami in Indonesiaor Haitis earthquake, where aid groupswere able to rush in and start savinglives within a matter of hours.

That said, itis not as if American orEuropean aid agencies are simply giv-ing up on Somalia. Its the opposite.Theyre stepping up operations andscrambling to find ways to get aroundthe Shabab restrictions, turning to newtechnologies like sending electronicmoney by cellphone so people in faminezones can buy food themselves from lo-cal markets.

Western charities are also teaming upwith the new players on the aid scene,like Turkish groups and other Muslimorganizations that are allowed into Sha-bab areas. It all calls for more hustleand definitely more imagination: in So-

malia there are a million impedimentsto the aid business the Shabab, thebroken-down state, dilapidatedportsand airports, American governmentsanctions, a legacy of corruption andthe sheer dangers of working in full-fledged anarchy haunted by militias,warlords, glassy-eyedgunmen andeven 21st-century pirates. But charitygroups say they are beginning to turnthis famine around. They just needmore resources and more time.

One thing is clear, said Elhadj AsSy,a Unicef official. With continued sup-port from our donors and partners, ourcombined efforts to save lives, liveli-hoods and ways of life will make a dif-ference.

But support meaning dollars hasbeen frustratingly scant. While manymore lives are at stake in Somalias cri-sis, other recent disasters pulled in farmore money. For instance, Save the

Children U.S. has raised a l ittle morethan $5 million in private donations forthe Horn of Africa crisis, which includesSomalia and the drought-inflicted areas

of Kenya and Ethiopia. That contrastswith what Save the Children raised in2004 for the Indonesian tsunami ($55.4million) or the earthquake in Haiti in2010 ($28.2 million) or even the earth-quake in Japan earlier this year ($22.8million) and Japan is a rich country.

Americans are incredibly generouswhen they understand that children arein desperate need, said Carolyn Miles,president of Save the Children. If theyknew millions of children were facingdeath in East Africa, I believe they

would give. But I dont think Americansunderstand the scale of this disaster.Rachel Wolff, a spokeswoman for

World Vision, explained thatrapid-on-set disasters, like a sudden earth-quake, tend to get more attention andmore donations. And Somalias crisiswas hardly rapid. This was a catastro-phe 20 years in the making.

The central government collapsed in1991, pulled down by clan warlords whothen turned on one another and plungedSomalia into anarchy. The hospitals arenow shot-up wrecks, the roads are abys-mal and the airports and ports barelyfunction, complicating the efforts tobring in life-saving supplies. Somaliaseconomy has been so shattered by warthat there are few paying jobs, whichleads to the pilfering of humanitarianaid, another serious problem here, be-cause the black market of stolen foodaid has blossomed into one of the coun-

trys few moneymaking industries,along with, of course, piracy.Farms are ruined and much of the

food Somalis survive on is imported,leaving them highly vulnerable toswings in global food prices, which arenear record highs. Somaliais also prob-ably one of the most violent countrieson the planet. Whenever I come, I haveto hire my own private mini-army toguard me, usually 10 to 15 gunmen, whostart shadowing me the minute I stepoff the plane. Many aid workers havebeen killed or kidnapped in Somalia,which has scared aid organizationsaway.

We are beyond frustrated to not beable to reach children who are dying,not be able to fulfill our humanitarianmandate within the worst-hit areas ofthe Horn drought crisis, said Mrs.Wolff of World Vision, which the Shababhas banned. Since February, when we

warned of the drought crisis, we havebeen exploring various options but donot have a breakthrough solution at thispoint.

In the other crises Ive covered,theres a certain routine: check in withthe United Nations upon arrival, get asecurity briefing, take an aid worker outfor a drink and then,come next morn-ing, hitch a ride to the field in an aidagency Land Cruiser with the namestenciled on the side.

In refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan orthe many besieged Congolese townsIve worked in, its hard not to stumbleacross other Westerners, many wearing

mesh vests emblazoned with the nameof their organization or the acronyms Save the Children, Doctors WithoutBorders,Unicef, the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees, theInternational Rescue Committee, WarChild overseeing food deliveries, tak-ing surveys or slipping a feeding tubeup the nose of a starving child. But inSomalia, these big agencies are virtual-ly absent.

The day a photographer and I visitedthe Badbaado camp in Mogadishu,many people thought we were the aid

workers. We passed rows of tiny hutsbuilt literally out of sticks and rags,stepping over piles of human waste be-cause these camps of starving peoplehave sprouted up so fast there are fewlatrines, water taps or any real plan-ning, and we met one emaciated personafter another. They stumbled forward,sometimes hugging me for support orpulling the tight skin at their throats toshow they were starving. One manreached out and jerked my arm.

Look! he said, pointing to a smallbundle in the corner of his tent. I peeredin. It was the corpse of his 2-year-oldson, Suleiman, who had just died.

I heard many bad stories about theShabab in these camps. Most peoplehere fled Shabab zones, often startingout their journey with five or six chil-dren and arriving in Mogadishu with

just one or two left. Thereis nothingelse they can do. They either buriedtheir children along the way or left themdying under a tree.

People told me the Shabab were try-ing to prevent anyone from leaving andthat Shabab fighters had even set upspecial camps where thousands of ex-hausted, hungry and sick people werecorralled at gunpoint, an ideal breedingground for disease, especially becausethe Shabab have also banned immuni-zations. Its the perfect storm to killcountless children. Measles, typhoidand cholera are already beginning tosweep through the camps. Epidemiolo-gists predict that the fatalities will shootup and thousands of people will perishwhen the heavy rains come in Novem-ber and December, spreading water-borne diseases.

Ken Menkhaus, a political scienceprofessor at Davidson College who hasbeen working as a consultant on Soma-

lia since the early 1990s, said the Shababhad pushed Somalia to a tipping point.The worst-case scenario is a Khmer

Rouge situation where a group with atwisted ideology presides over the massdeath of its own people, he said. Thenumbers are going to be horrifying.

There have been some rumblings byEthiopia and others of strengtheningthe current African Union peace-keep-ing force in Somalia and trying to blastout the Shabab so more aid can reachstarving people. But the United Statesand the other nations with the neces-sary resources dont want to getdragged back into Somalia, which wasthe scene of a botched peace-keepingmission in the 1990s.

But this famine isnt all about theShabab. Even in the few government-controlled zones,people are sufferingon a shocking scale. Western donors, in-cluding the United States, have poured

millions of dollars into Somalias Transi-tional Federal Government, a divided,unpopular collection of politicians andformer warlords based in Mogadishu,

Somalias bullet-riddled capital. Ameri-can officials have branded the T.F.G., asit is known, as the best bulwark againstthe Shabab. But many analysts say theT.F.G. has performed dismally in re-sponding to the famine (and to the Sha-bab), and in recent weeks, governmentmilitias have looted food and shot starv-ing people.

The governments weaknesses havespawned the advent of more than 20 in-dependent mini-states seeking to rulethemselves. Most of these are formedby members of the same clan the

building block of Somali society andare loose organizations of a few politi-cians and some gunmen. In a time offamine, its a bit overwhelming for aidgroups to deal with all these new enti-ties.

In August, I flew with World Vision tovisit Dolo, a small town on the Ethiopia-Somalia border controlled by a local mi-litia. We took off from Nairobi at dawn,cruising over vast tracts of uninhabited,desiccated scrub brush, and landed on adirt airstrip three hours later. Stick-thinmilitiamen dressed in camouflage uni-forms that hung loose off their bonyshoulders squinted at us as we steppedoff the plane. We climbed into dustytrucks and sped off to see the districtcommissioner, Dolos boss.

The district commissioners officewas a twig hut with a plastic tarp for aroof and sand for a floor. I think the mancould read, but that was about it hetold us he had barely gone to school,didnt have any money and was strug-gling to handle the ceaseless flood ofstarving people pouring into his area.Just a few steps from his office I met awoman sitting on an empty wooden boxalong the road, with four very thin chil-dren. They had just arrived from a Sha-bab area, and the woman said that whatlittle food was being distributed throughthe International Committee of the RedCross was getting stolen by Shababfighters.

Theyre starving, too, she said.The World Vision team made a quick

survey of conditions in the town, leav-ing Chris Smoot, the Somalia countrydirector, almost in tears.

I see a community that doesnt knowhow to cope, Mr. Smoot said. Theyrecut off, this little island of whatever.

We landed back in Nairobi by night-

fall, proof of another problem: few for-eign aid workers who work on Somaliaactually spend much time in Somalia.Just about all the embassies and aidagencies run their Somali operations byremote control from Nairobi, relying onlocal staffs and updates by phone ande-mail, because its too dangerous forforeigners to linger in Somalia for morethan a few hours (unless youre a jour-nalist with your own mini-army). One ofthe consequences of this arms-lengthapproach is an inevitable lack of over-sight, which has precipitated scandalslike accusations against the World FoodProgram that as much as half of theemergency food intended for needypeople in Somalia isbeing stolen by cor-rupt United Nations contractors andsold on the open market; some of theproceeds are said to be going to the Sha-bab, who then use the money for guns.

The accusations have never been de-

finitively proved. But just their possibili-ty prompted the American governmentto slap heavy restrictions on aid to So-malia, which remain in place now, even

during the famine. American officialsrecently indicated that they had relaxedsome of the restrictions,but aid agen-cies said it was still difficult to deter-mine what was legal and what was not.

The uncertainties around whatwere allowed to do in southern Soma-lia, and with whom, create a chilling ef-fect for aid groups who would otherwisewant to respond, explained JeremyKonyndyk, a director of policy and ad-vocacy for Mercy Corps.

All this might easily lead one to con-

clude that Somalia is beyond hope andthat hundreds of thousands of peopleare going to die, no matter what. Butthats not true. Aid agencies are makingprogress, though the situation is farfrom ideal. I constantly get e-mails ask-ing: what can I do to help?

I try not to pick favorites, and I givethe best picture I can, which is constant-ly changing, of who is doing what in re-sponse to this famine. The Shabab aremercurial, letting in some big aidgroups but not others.Unicef, for exam-ple, is one of the few United Nationsagencies able to do some work in Sha-bab areas, supporting feeding centersand medical clinics, but all through So-mali staff. The World Food Program isdistributing food in the Mogadishucamps, but once again there are myriadaccusations of aid being stolen.

Smaller aid agencies definitely havemore flexibility. For instance, the only

Western aid worker I saw during a re-cent trip to Dhobley, a wild, militia-con-trolled town on the Somalia-Kenya bor-der, was a burly Australian with a whiteHemingway-esque beard who wasworking for the American RefugeeCommittee. Its a private aid agencythat has sent several foreigners into So-malia to oversee sanitation and cash-for-work projects.

Kenya and Ethiopia host more than600,000 Somali refugees, and many ofthe major aid organizations, like CARE,Doctors Without Borders, the UnitedNations High Commissioner for Refu-gees and Save the Children, are runningprograms in camps in these two coun-tries. Inside Somalia, many aid groupsare embracing the approach of cashtransfers by cellphoneas a way to getaround the Shabab and deliver aid di-rectly and discreetly to poor peo-

ple. It is early days yet, but it seems tobe working.

Muslim charities, like Islamic Reliefand several Turkish aid agencies, areplaying an increasingly large role in thiscrisis, because the Shabab continue toallow them much more access todrought zones than the Western groups.Somali organizations, like Saacid, arealso helping feed people, though the lo-cal charities are often undermannedand underfinanced.

It is important to remember that how-ever plagued Somalia is, however rou-tine conflict, drought and disease havebecome, however many Somalis havealready needlessly died, Somalis are notsomehow wired differently from therest of us. They are not numb to suffer-ing. They are not grief-proof. Ill neverforget the expression on Mr. Kufowsface as he stumbled out of Benadir Hos-

pital into the penetrating sunshine withhis lifeless little girl in his arms. He maynot have been weeping openly. But helooked as if he could barely breathe.

The anti-Western

Shabab has even banned

immunizations.

Some Aid Trickles Into Somalia, Encircled by DeathFrom Page F1

ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE GETTY IMAGES

WAITING FOR RATIONS Women in a refugee camp near Mogadishu, Somalia, wait to receive meals cooked and distributedby aid organizations, including the World Food Program.


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NY F3THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2011


4/16



By JOHN HANC

BY 8:30 on a chilly late Octobermorning, a crowd of almost 200has formed outside the German-

town Neighborhood Center in Quincy,Mass.

The blocklong line is a mosaic of Ger-mantown, a working-class part of Quin-cy, about 11 miles south of Boston. Theneighborhood takes its name from theGerman immigrants who arrived herein the 1800s to work in the now-vanishedshipyards. But today, elderly Chineseand Russian-speaking women are linedup next to young Caucasian mothersand African-American men. Childrenscurry about; teenagers standwith hoo-dies pulled tight. There are people inwheelchairs, and people pushing shop-ping carts. Two police officers stand by,although the mood of this crowd is nothostile.

These people are hungry.A few minutes after 8:30, Jimmy

Sambataro, a driver for the GreaterBoston Food Bank, maneuvers his truckaround the corner of Palmer Street andinto the centers parking lot. The 26-foot, 10-wheel rig is loaded with nearly

14,000 pounds of produce, juice, chicken,meat and dairy products. Seeing him,the crowd cheers and Mr. Sambataro a former United Parcel Service driver responds with a friendly toot of hishorn.

Here, in what researchers call a fooddesert, the camel has arrived.

Food deserts, communities lackingaccess to supermarkets or othersources of fresh, healthful food, are typi-cally thought of as being in isolated,rural areas. But as the shock waves ofthe recession reverberate across soci-ety, food deserts have engulfed placeslike Germantown. The number of chil-dren here at or below the poverty levelis now four times as great as in Quincyover all.

The communitys economic woes arecompounded by geography. On a penin-sula jutting into Quincy Bay, German-

town is about eight miles from the near-est supermarket. That is a long bus ridefor many, and carrying groceries is par-ticularly difficult for older residents orthose without cars and with children. Tosupplement the regular offerings of thelocal food pantry, the Greater BostonFood Bank began a pilot program in Au-gust called the Mobile Pantry.

It is based on a simple idea: If Ger-mantown cannot get to the food, the Mo-bile Pantry will get the food to German-town.

Its definitely a creative solution,

said Shelly Ver Ploeg, an economist atthe United States Agriculture Depart-ment who studies food deserts. Forcommunities that dont have a super-market, this might be a way to go.

The truck donated by CitizensBank is loaded at the food banks

headquarters in an industrial section ofBoston.

The food, which is bought by the foodbank or donated, is unloaded by volun-teers and staff members who springinto action as soon as Mr. Sambataro ar-rives.

Metal tables are unfolded, signs post-ed, boxes sliced open. It looks in someways like the finish line of a local mara-thon, food-laden tables ready to wel-come the tired finishers. Indeed, manyof those in the crowd that begins to fileby at 9 a.m. look as if they have endureda great deal.

The food is free and no proof of needis required. This is the third time inthree months the Mobile Pantry hascome to Germantown, and Joan Sartori,who lives near the Germantown Neigh-borhood Center in a housing develop-ment for the elderly, has been thereeach time. Its stuff you wouldnt nor-mally buy for yourself, says Mrs. Sar-tori, who said she lived on her monthlySocial Security check. She has stoodoutside several hours for the opportuni-ty to receive a seven-ounce package oflettuce, a bag of pears, sweet potatoes,apples, two containers of cottagecheese, a four-pack of yogurt, a half-gallon of orange juice and a choice of a

seven-pound bag of either chicken, redmeator pork.

Its worth the wait, says Mrs. Sarto-ri, who says that what she collected willlast her many days. I raised five chil-dren, she says with a wry smile. Iknow how to make food last.

Others still have children in thehouse. One recipient, or client as thefood bank would call him, is a middle-aged man with three children. Ivebeen out of work for about a year and a

half, and my wifes ill, said the man,who would identify himself only as Sam.This is awesome. It really helps usstretch out the food budget.

I think its wonderful, said anotherelderly client, who gave her name asFlorence. Its like a farmers market.But its sad that America has come tothis point.

According to the 2010 Hunger Studyproduced by the relief group FeedingAmerica, the number of hungry peoplein the Greater Boston area grew 23 per-cent from 2005 through 2009. Accordingto the same study, the number of peo-ple fed at pantries and shelters na-tionwide rose 46 percent, to an estimat-ed 37 million different people annuallyfor the same period. The food bank esti-mates it feeds as many as 545,000 annu-ally.

Many of the faces in the line for theMobile Pantry reflect this reality. Someare gaunt and drawn with anxiety, andyet a sense of good cheer pervades the

crowd. However hard their lives havebecome, these people are happy to getthis food. However difficult it is to seehunger firsthand, the volunteers andstaff members seem happy to providethe food.

This woke me up, says Mr. Samba-taro, a married father of three sons wholives in Salem, N.H.It made me appre-ciate what I have. Im working, Imhelping people, and its a great feeling.

Some light exchanges leaven the oth-erwise serious business of helping tokeep people alive. Despite Chinese

translations in the signs posted witheach offering, an older Asian man with aNike baseball cap seems uncertainabout what is being served on the lasttable.

Its chicken, says Jan ONeill, a vol-unteer from nearby Hull. The manshakes his head, still not understanding.Chicken . . . , ONeill repeats, search-ing for a way to explain. You know . . .. she then imitates the clucking of ahen. Buck . . . buck . . . buck . . .

The man laughs heartily. Ah, yes,yes! Thank you, thank you! he says,accepting the package.

The nearby alternatives for most ofthese people are a pizzeria, Dunkin Do-nuts and a convenience store. For thefood bank, it is not a question of just get-ting food to the desert; it is the qualityof food. We used to talk about theamount of calories, says CatherineDAmato, the food banks chief execu-tive. Now its the nutritional value ofthose calories.

By 11:30 a.m. the crowd and mostof the food is gone. A total of 571 peo-ple have been served. It has been an-other successful delivery for the pro-gram, which Ms. Amato says her or-ganization hopes to expand to severalmore Boston-area food deserts in thenext fiscal year.

People really need it, says an unem-ployed resident of Germantown namedBlake, toting shopping bags full ofproduce, fresh from the Mobile Pantry.I can tell you this, he adds with asmile. Im going to enjoy my food.

A Mobile Oasis

In a Food Desert

BRYCE VICKMARK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

DELIVERED FRESH Frances Joseph, a volunteer, distributed free food at the Mobile Pantry in Quincy, Mass.

THE terms food desert and foodinsecurity are part of the newlanguage of hunger.

The former refers to a low-incomearea in which a significant number ofresidents lack access to supermar-kets or other sources of healthfulfood.

According to federal Agriculture

Department studies, about 10 per-cent of the 65,000 census tracts in theUnited States qualify as food deserts.Shelly Ver Ploeg, an economist whostudies food deserts for the depart-ment, says she is not a fan of theterm.

Desert conjures up images ofrural areas, she says, noting thatmany food deserts are in poor urbanareas. As is the case with places likethe Germantown section of Quincy,Mass., they are starting to appear in

suburban areas hit by the recession,as well.

Although long used in the parlanceof international aid, food insecurity isan even slipperier concept. Some de-fine the food insecure as people whodo not meet the requirements forgovernment assistance, but are stillnot able to adequately feed their fam-

ilies.Mark Nord, who studies food inse-

curity for the Agriculture Depart-ment, uses a slightly different defini-tion, suggesting that it is a more fluidcondition.

Food-insecure households are notable to put adequate food o n the tableat various times during the year, hesays.

For most households, its notchronic, although its also not justone episode, either. JOHN HANC

The World of Hunger Has a New Language


5/16



By GERALDINE FABRIKANT

IN a city where philanthropyhas to rise to more than a $1million to grab headlines, a

gift of $2,000 may not seem allthat noteworthy. But every yearfor the last 23 years, such a gifthas made a great difference totwo librarians in the New YorkPublic Library who are selectedby their colleagues to receive a

$2,000 prize from the BerthaFranklin Feder Award program.

The idea for the gift came fromVartan Gregorian in 1988, whenhe was president of the library. Atthat time Ruth and Arthur Federwanted to honor Mr. Federsmother. He was a retired lawyerand his wife had been volunteer-ing at the library.

Mr. Feder said his motherloved libraries and started onefor the retirement complexwhere she lived in Florida. Herecalled: We asked Vartan whatwe could do and he said, Wouldyou consider doing something forthe librarians? They manage li-braries and shape the collections.They are very dedicated, butthey are underpaid.

The Feders liked the idea. Mr.

Feder, a former tax lawyer,brought a bit of his expertise tothe gift, by seeking to have itstructured so it would includeenough money to cover the taxes,

which would enable the recipientto keep the full amount.

From that concept came a pro-gram to honor librarianship, ac-cording to Anne Coriston, vicepresident for public service at theNew York Public Library. Sincethen, the awards have been cele-brated annually at a tea with thepresident of the library, the Fed-ers and other guests.

One winner, Billy Parrott,switched careers in 2000 afteryears of managing a bookstore.In 2007, the year he won his

award, he was working at the Jef-ferson Market Library and hadinstituted a number of successfulprograms, including an exhibit ofanonymous found photographs.

I love libraries, and it meant alot to be recognized in a new ca-reer, Mr. Parrott recalled.

That same year the Federsthree children expanded the pro-gram in honor of their fathers80th birthday.

Today there are 1,400 publicservice people who work in the li-brarys system. And as the li-

brary has grown bigger, so hasthe number of prizes. The Federchildren decided to add two re-cipients to the program eachyear, also with $2,000 prizes. Butthey wanted the prizes to go to

people within the library systemwho are not librarians. To pro-vide the additional financing,they raised money from familyand friends.

Michelle Misner won heraward in 2009. She started as a li-brarian at the Science, Industryand Business Library and thenmoved to Web development. Iwork on building the library Website with its calendar of eventsand information about the serv-ices and collections, Ms. Misnersaid. I had thought the award

was for public service librarians,and I was behind the scenes. Acolleague had written the nomi-nation for me, and I never ex-pected to win. It was quite won-derful.

The library has expanded therecognition so that now winnersare also presented to the man-agement council of the entire li-brary.

It is a lovely thing, Ms. Coris-ton said, and it is very nice thatcolleagues acknowledge eachothers work.

Speaking Up to Honor the Quiet Work of LibrariansA gift from a library

lovers family tosystem employees.


6/16



have been asking pointed ques-tions about what their residentsreceive in return for the exemp-tions from property and salestaxes granted tononprofits.

While many Americans havealways given generously to helppeople, many others includingindividuals with the deepestpockets and foundations with bil-

lions in assets make donationsof a different sort: building mu-seums to house their art collec-tions; underwriting new wings inhospitals or halls named for themat their alma maters; using theirmoney and influence to swaypublic policy and influence politi-cal campaigns; or seeking tosolve problems in distant landsrather than in their own back-yards.

While charitable giving roseslightly over all in 2010, gifts toorganizations that address basichuman needs fell 6.6 percent, ac-cording to Giving USA. And themiddle class, which has tradition-ally given more to address thoseneeds, is feeling the bite of theeconomic malaise.

At a time when America is

having a debate about the socialcontract, philanthropy is silent,said Emmett D. Carson, chief ex-ecutive of the Silicon Valley Com-munity Foundation, which hasassets of $2 billion. We are silentabout the depths of the problemsof homelessness, joblessness,foreclosure, hunger, and peopleare starting to believe that phi-lanthropy is irrelevant to the coreneeds of their communities.

As an example, he cites vari-ous proposals by the Obama ad-ministration to reduce the tax de-ductions for charitable giving like reducing that benefit for thewealthy. Because of our silence,we now have a president, a for-mer community organizer, whodoes not value the charitable de-duction, Mr. Carson said. Whathes saying is that, left to its owndevices, government can spendthose dollars better than philan-thropists.

Mr. Carson, one of the mostprominent African-Americans ininstitutional philanthropy, haslong been known as a sort of Di-ogenes, unafraid to debunk themythology that cloaks philan-thropic institutions. As an in-dustry, we prefer to be bystand-ers, he said of institutional phi-lanthropists. We are afraid of

controversy, and we dont like toexplain why we make the choiceswe make as grant makers.

An alumnus of the Ford Foun-dation, Mr. Carson came to Sil-icon Valley to oversee the mergerof two community foundations inSanta Clara and San Mateo Coun-ties, home to some of the worldswealthiest people, and he subse-quently ruffled more than a fewfeathers there. The merged Sil-icon Valley Community Founda-tions first project took aim atforeclosure. I got asked at least

a million times, why are youworking on foreclosure, whatdoes that have to do with thesecounties? Mr. Carson said.

His staff had been conductingpublic meetings, he said, wherethey heard over and over thatpeople were struggling withmortgage payments. It was thetale of two valleys, he said. Oneis very well known, filled withhigh-tech and social media mo-guls that can find enough peoplewith the talent and skills theircompanies need. And then

theres the other Silicon Valley,the one that has some of the high-est unemployment rates, thehighest foreclosure rates, thehighest dropout rates and thehighest cost of living.

In addition to foreclosure, thefoundation took on payday lend-ing and financial literacy and setup a community opportunityfund that pays for food for thehungry and shelter for those los-ing their homes.

As a result, more than $6 mil-lion has been distributed to foodpantries and shelters since 2008.

We cant expect philanthropyto fill in all the gaps, Mr. Carsonsaid. But we cant be ostriches,either.

But not all philanthropistswant to work on this level, andmany of the generous have theirown specific crusades. On the

same day the Census Bureau an-nounced its poverty statistics, theFound Animals Foundation,which works to help stray andabandoned animals, announced itwould award a $25 million prizeto any scientist who finds a non-surgical method for spaying andneutering animals.

Dr. Gary Michelson, the billion-aire orthopedic surgeon behindthe foundation and the prize, alsoput up an additional $50 million tosupport the research needed toreach that goal and said hewould provide more, if needed.If the first 50 goes, Ill put in an-other 50, he said. I intend to fin-ish this.

Echoing many big donors, Dr.Michelson said that donating tofood banks and homeless shelterswas not fulfilling. Early on what

I learned was that, yes, you canwrite checks and mail them off

just dont expect a lot for that,Dr. Michelson said.

A few years ago, for example,he read about a group of profes-sors from a community collegewho put up $500 in an effort tokeep students from dropping outbecause they couldnt afford text-books. Horrified, he contributed$50,000.

That was the right thing to do,but all I did was the equivalent ofgiving a hungry person a fish,Dr. Michelson said. What Ineeded to do was come up with amore permanent solution.

So he is starting a nonprofitthat hopes to digitize textbooksand put them online for studentsto download at little or no cost.Of course, this is something thegovernment should do, but mysaying it wont help move thegovernment to do it, he said.

Similarly, William E. ConwayJr., the billionaire co-founder ofthe Carlyle Group, recently toldThe Washington Post that he wasdissatisfied with giving tens ofmillions of dollars to nonprofitsthat provide food, shelter andhealth care to the needy. Somuch of what I do now is stop-gap, he told The Post. Some-bodys hungry, we give money tothe food bank. It would be far bet-ter if we had a more permanentsolution.

Mr. Conway, who declined tospeak to The New York Times,told The Post that he hoped touse his philanthropy to create

jobs and other more enduring

things.Mr. Buffett pledged the bulk ofhis fortune to the Gates Founda-tion but insists that his sister

Doris is the real philanthropistin the family. Ms. Buffett presidesover the Sunshine Lady Founda-tion, which does nothing but helppeople in need.

Who am I to dispute whatWarren says? she said.

She recently visited a maxi-mum-security prison where 11 in-mates were getting degrees fromaccredited colleges, includingCornell and Mercy College,through her philanthropy. Thegeneral recidivism rate is about63 percent coast to coast, Ms.Buffett said. In our program, itszero.

A similar program she startedworks to provide education tovictims of domestic violence.More than 1,600 women havegraduated under it, and onewent on to the Wharton School,she said.

Ms. Buffett had long been giv-ing away money when her broth-er made his pledge to the Gates

Foundation. So when he begangetting letters from people ask-ing for his help, he put them in abox and sent them to her, alongwith $10 million.

I rounded up a bunch of la-dies, and we started reading let-ters, she said. Some of themwere nutty, but most of them

were from people who were gen-uinely desperate and just neededa little help.

They asked for money to puttires on their cars so they couldget to work, for new glasses, forhearing aids, for custody pay-ments and myriad other things.We checked out their stories,Ms. Buffett said. We never en-able anyone, we empower them.

One woman, for instance, hadcrippling arthritis, and her hus-band wasnt working. Ms. Buffettagreed to help out only if thehusband found a job. I said,Yousend me a Xerox of his paycheck,and well match it until Christ-mas, Ms. Buffett recalled. Thefirst week, I think he got some-thing like $75 for raking leaves oryard work, but by the second orthird week, he was employed byone of those big national hard-ware chains. We got that fellowup out of his Barcalounger weempowered him.

During more than a decade ofphilanthropy, Ms. Buffett haspaid for tires, roofs, wheelchairsand refrigerators It doesnthave to be the swankiest one,she said and covered legal billsfor custody fights and electricbills to ensure heat. Money fordental work is a common request,and on occasion she has paid fortrips to the Mayo Clinic so theycan get a proper diagnosis andsome help.

I do consider these as invest-ments rather than giveaways,and Im looking for a good returnon them, she said. The best re-turn is when lives change for the

better in some way, thats thecommanding thought behind all Ido.

Her program to educate pris-

oners is an example of whatmany in the nonprofit world callimpact investing, a catchallphrase to describe unconvention-al ways of getting money intononprofit coffers and reducingthe reliance on philanthropy.

In Britain, for example, HerMajestys Prison Peterboroughhas long had high rates of recidi-vism. A new nonprofit group, So-cial Finance, raised money to ad-dress that problem in partthrough the sale of $8 millionworth of bonds to foundationsand wealthy individuals.

If Social Finance succeeds inreducing recidivism by 7.5 per-cent or more, the British govern-ment will not only repay the in-vestors but give them a returnon investment. The RockefellerFoundation is one of the invest-ors, and it is working to replicate

the British experiment in theUnited States.

Antony Bugg-Levine, the new-ly appointed head of the Nonprof-it Finance Fund and a formerRockefeller Foundation manag-ing director who oversaw thatinvestment, said the experi-ment could be the harbinger of anew way of deploying philan-thropic dollars to address basicneeds, pointing to the growingnumber of foundations and fam-ily offices that use grant moneyto support nonprofits throughlow-interest loans and bridge fi-nancing.

Still other foundations andfamily offices are experimentingwith what is known as mission-related investments, using en-dowment assets to invest in

mainstream companies whosebusiness or business practices insome way produce benefits forsociety.

Companies, too, are findingways to reorganize their opera-tions so that they generate socialbenefits in addition to profits.The Wal-Mart Stores foundation,for instance, recently pledged tospend $100 million over the nextfive years to support the develop-ment of businesses owned bywomen and buy some $20 billionin merchandise from such enter-prises.

These are much larger poolsof money that have traditionallybeen invested solely to achieve afinancial return, said Mr. Bugg-Levine, co-author of Impact In-vesting: Transforming How We

Make Money While Making a Dif-ference.If just a fraction of those as-

sets gets invested in this way, hesaid, it can make a significantdifference.

Yet some Wal-Mart employeesand others have asked why Wal-Mart did not use that money tosupport its employees healthcare needs.

David Tovar, a companyspokesman, said that Wal-Martgave away more than $300 mil-lion in 2009 and that it addressedat least one basic need with itsprogram to provide fresh foodsfrom its groceries to food banks.

Linking charitable giving andemployee benefits is an apple-to-orange comparison, Mr. Tovarsaid. We spend several billion

dollars each year providing com-prehensive benefits to more thanone million associates and theirfamilies.

STUART ISETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

STREET-LEVEL CHARITYA demonstration outside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, where homeless people pressed for help to reopen shelters.

From Page F1

When Needs Hit Home: A Debate Over Helping

As overall givingrises, gifts for basichuman needs fall.


7/16


By ROBIN POGREBIN

GIVEN that she is 77 years

old and has been on theboard of the Alvin Ailey

American Dance Theater for 17years, 11 as chairwoman, Joan H.Weill clearly does not need to

serve any longer. She could sim-ply be enjoying time with herhusband, Sanford I. Weill, who re-cently retired as the head of Citi-group. They could be relaxing attheir home in Californias winecountry or spending more timewith their f our grandchildren.

But Ms. Weill still has goals toaccomplish, including providinghousing for Ailey students, givenhow hard it is for dancers to af-ford to live in New York. And sheis eager to see what Aileys newartistic director, Robert Battle,who succeeded Judith Jamison inJune, will bring as he begins hisfirst season this month.

In turn, the dance companycannot imagine Ailey without Ms.Weill. When Joan does some-thing, its with every fiber of herbeing, said Sharon Gersten

Luckman, the executive directorof the Alvin Ailey Dance Founda-tion, the companys umbrella or-ganization. So if she left, it wouldfeel like wed lose our balance.Shes that connected. Shes thatintegral to what we do.

Ms. Weill has been crucial tokeeping the organization on sta-ble financial footing throughouther tenure, despite challengingeconomic times. She has contrib-uted large sums of her ownmoney and raised large sumsfrom her friends. She donated$18.4 million toward Aileys $54million new home on West 55thStreet at Ninth Avenue, calledthe Joan Weill Center for Dance,which opened in 2005 and isthought to be the largest dancecomplex in New York City.

She has turned Aileys annualgala from a relatively modest af-fair into a sprawling celebrationat Hilton New Yorks Grand Ball-room, where people dance untilthe wee hours. Last year it raised$2.7 million while honoring Ms.Weill for her decade of service asboard chairwoman.

In the three years after Ms.Weill became a co-chairwoman ofthe gala in 1996, the event tripledin size and revenue. This sea-sons gala, on Nov. 30, featuresMichelle Obama and the modelIman as honorary chairwomen.

Ms. Weill has gone around theworld with the dance company,helping to organize tours to Bei-

jing, Shanghai and St. Peters-

burg, Russia. She has also mademany visits to Ailey camps fordisadvantaged preadolescents.

She and her husband were thelead supporters of Aileys 2008endowment campaign whichraised $50 million as part of the50th anniversary celebration and received the Carnegie Medalof Philanthropy Award in 2009.

And she has become friendswith the people who work atAiley, entertaining the dancers inher home, making sure sheknows everyone by name. Joanhas become over the years a real

confidante, said Ms. Jamison,now chairwoman emeritus.

Ms. Weill has grown evangeli-cal about Ailey. She gives ticketsto her hairdressers and house-keepers as holiday presents. Sheinvites friends to performancesand persuadesthem to buy tablesat the Ailey gala.

A lot of people, including myhusband, had no idea what thiswas about, so you have to takethem, she said. A lot of myfriends, frankly, I literallydragged here, especially theguys. And now they all comeback.

Ms. Weill was first exposed toAiley as a teenager, when herfamily moved from California toNew York City and lived at theWellington Hotel near City Cen-ter on West 55th Street, wherethe company has long performed.

Years later, friends invited Ms.Weill and her husband thelongtime chairman of CarnegieHall to see Ailey in Harlem.Ms. Weill was smitten with thedancers and with Ms. Jamison:She was such a role model andsuch a presence.

Before joining Aileys board,Ms. Weill served on the board ofWomen in Need, a charity forhomeless women and their fam-ilies. My husband used to kid methat he took care of culture and Itook care of the streets, she said.I realized that Ailey broughtthem together.

Mr. Ailey always said thedance comes from the people,and therefore it should bebrought back to the people.

Ms. Weill joined the board in1994 and became chairwoman sixyears later. She and her husbandhave become Aileys biggest fi-

nancial supporters, though Ms.Weill declined to be specificabout their total contributions.

She has a lot, Mr. Battle saidof Ms. Weill, but she does a lotand she gives a lot.

Ailey is not Ms. Weills only

cause. She is co-chairwoman ofthe advisory committee of theWeill Music Institute at CarnegieHall; chairwoman emeritus ofPaul Smiths College, The Collegeof the Adirondacks;and co-chair-woman of the NewYork Presby-terian/Weill Cornell Medical Cen-ters Womens Health Sympo-sium. But Ms. Weill said Aileywas her No. 1 priority.

Her husband said so, too. Shedoesnt fake it; this is real, hesaid. Shes there all the time.

While Ms. Weill devotes a goodpart of every week to Ailey mat-ters, she said she also tries tostay out of the way. I also dontwant to micromanage. she said.

Ms. Luckman said Ms. Weillhas carved out a role that is help-

ful without being intrusive.Shes not a chairman that med-dles with the day-to-day opera-tions, Ms. Luckman said. Shesa great strategist.

Eventually, Ms. Weill said, shewill step down. I never want to

hold this organization back, shesaid. They need to grow.

For now, Ms. Weill said shecontinues to enjoy being part ofwhat she calls the Ailey family.When you get to know the danc-ers and you see them on the

stage, its just so much moremeaningful, she said.

Born in Bensonhurst, Brook-lyn, Ms. Weill moved with herfamily to the San Fernando Val-ley because of her fathers workas a press agent. Im an original

Valley Girl, she said.The family returned to New

York City when Ms. Weill was ateenager, and she graduatedfrom Brooklyn College, whereshe majored in education andpsychology. She and Mr. Weillmet on April Fools Day in 1954,when Ms. Weill was 19. Theywere married a year later.

After living in East Rockaway,N.Y., the Weills moved to Long Is-land before settling on the UpperEast Side, where they raisedtheir two children. They now liveon the Upper West Side.

Ms. Weill said her husband hasbeen a tireless supporter of hercommitment to Ailey. There wasa time when he grew tired ofRevelations, the spirited piecethat has become a crowd-pleas-ing staple of Aileys repertoire.But he quickly saw the error ofhis ways. I decided being tiredof it is not a good thing, he joked.So Im not tired of it anymore.

Ms. Weill, on the other hand,said she continues to discovernew things in Revelations, yearafter year. Its different everytime, she said. Its uplifting.

Dance DevoteeStays in Motion

At 77, an avid backerof dance still hasgoals to accomplish.

TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

BENEFACTOR Joan H. Weill,an Alvin Ailey board mem-ber and chairwoman.



8/16



By DUFF WILSON

PHARMACEUTICAL compa-nies around the globe aredonating billions of dollars

in free drugs to third world coun-tries grappling with poverty anddisease.

Abbott Laboratories is takingits philanthropy a step further.

The Illinois-based company isdonating the time of dozens of

workers with expertise in foodsciences and engineering, in ad-dition to $6.5 million cash, tobuild a charitable, self-sustainingnutrition enterprise in Haiti, thepoorest country of the WesternHemisphere.

On the central plateau of Haitione day recently, 18 women sat inthe shade hand-sorting peanutsin wide, flat baskets.

You know the misery we livein, said one of them, Francilia Jo-seph. I have six children athome. With this money, Im ableto send three of them to school.

Other workers roast the pea-nuts on gas stovetops, blendthem in food processors with oil,powdered milk and vitamins, andspoon the sticky mix into plastic

jars.The uniquely Haitian product,

called Nourimanba, is an essen-tial medicine for about 10,000 se-verely malnourished children ayear. It is distributed to clinics byPartners in Health, a Boston-based nonprofit organization thatis the largest provider of healthcare services in rural Haiti.

A few hundred yards away liesa roadway of rocks leading to anempty lot. Rising soon: an 18,000-square-foot manufacturing plantto produce the vitamin-enrichedpeanut butter on a much largerscale. In addition, some regularpeanut butter may also be ex-ported for sale to sustain thebusiness.

If Abbott can build an oasis oflocally grown, nutritious foodmanufacturing in Haiti, it will bea little bit of green in a notori-ously dark place, where it is diffi-

cult to make any real differencein peoples lives.

If youre going to see a trans-formational change in a place likeHaiti, its going to take a strategybeyond philanthropy, said Kath-erine F. Pickus, Abbotts division-al vice president for global citi-zenship and policy. We saw thisas an opportunity for Abbott to

not only give its products, but itsexpertise as a nutrition busi-ness.

Even before the 2010 earth-quake heaped more misery atopthe poverty in Haiti, one in fourchildren had stunted growth. An

estimated 2.2 percent of Haitianchildren under the age of 5 hadsevere acute malnutrition, ac-cording to the United NationsChildrens Fund.

Now it is worse. The quakekilled 316,000, according to thegovernment, and forced hun-dreds of thousands of people toleave the devastated capital city,Port-au-Prince, for the deeply im-poverished plateau.

Nourimanba is a high-calorie,high-protein, peanut-based paste

that does not require mixing withwater or refrigeration. It is a Uni-cef-approved ready-to-use thera-peutic food for severe malnutri-tion.

Weve been producing locallygrown therapeutic food since

2007, said Joan VanWassenhove,associate coordinator for nutri-tion in Haiti for Partners inHealth. But Abbotts involve-ment will help with quantity, aswell as quality, and help withhigher levels of food safety andsanitation standards. In our eyes,its going to be an astoundingsuccess.

As one small part of its workthere, the health organizationruns the Nourimanba operationnear Corporant, about 30 miles

north of Port-au-Prince. Thegroup, affiliated with HarvardMedical School and Brigham andWomens Hospital in Boston, wasfounded in 1987 to help Haiti. Ithas about 15,000 employeesaround the world.

While the rudimentary produc-tion plant makes about 70 tons ofNourimanba for 10,000 children ayear, the new one will push ca-pacity to more than 350 tons and50,000 children, the healthgroups spokesman, AndrewMarx, said. Children receive itdaily for six to eight weeks. Thenew operation will also expandon the 300 or so farmers whohave a guaranteed market fortheir peanut crops.

An alternative to poverty anddisease is to have a virtuous cy-cle of health, well-being and op-portunity, Mr. Marx said.

Ive seen some children whoare malnourished in my commu-nity receive Nourimanba, one ofthe peanut farmers, Wesley Lou-is-Jean, said. They regain theirstrength quickly with it. Im hap-

py to see that.Abbott and its foundation pre-

viously worked with the healthgroup in Malawi, Africa, to payfor a new clinic. But this is a de-parture, Ms. VanWassenhovesaid. Its not Abbott coming inand saying we have an idea wecan do. Its more like saying wewant to take your vision andmake it the best possible.

The charity is also a point ofpride for a drug company thathas been involved with somedark chapters in pharmaceuticalhistory. Just last month, Abbottset aside $1.5 billion in anticipa-tion of settling criminal and civilinvestigations that it had illegallymarketed the epilepsy drug,

Depakote, to elderly patientswith dementia, for whom it wasunsafe.

Abbott, which had a $4.5 billionprofit on $38.4 billion in sales inthe 12 months ended Sept. 30, hasbeen listed by The Chronicle of

Philanthropy as one of the mostgenerous companies in the Unit-ed States. In 2010, The Chroniclefound, 91 percent of Abbotts giv-ing, or $572 million, was in theform of products, the fourth-high-est ratio among major compa-nies.

The view from Abbott is one ofbeing thankful to work on such ameaningful project as the nutri-tion factory, according to Daniel

Schmitz, a scientist and laborato-ry director of Abbott Nutrition inColumbus, Ohio, who is leadingthe nutritional team on theproject.

Abbott is donating the time offood scientists, chemists, micro-biologists, formulation develop-ers and process engineers, hesaid.

Their work starts with the reci-pe. Nourimanba is made of pea-nuts, milk powder, vegetable oil,sugar and a specially formulatedvitamin mix.

Its a very good recipe, and itprovides everything we need formalnutrition, Mr. Schmitz said.But Abbott is looking at alterna-tives to the milk powder because

it is imported and expensive.Were going to look at things

that are a viable crop in Haiti,Mr. Schmitz said. That may in-clude soybeans, beans or otherlegumes locally sourced ingre-dients that could cut that cost in

half. Im excited about that partof it because thats really a trueR.& D. effort, and it just offers thepotential to build in somethingthat is truly Haitian, he said.

Then there is the factory.Groundbreaking was delayedthis year by an outbreak of chol-era that caused 6,000 deaths inHaiti. Now groundbreaking isplanned for January and produc-tion before the end of 2012.

Were building it to be a veryrobust, simple operation, Mr.Schmitz said. For instance, thewomen picking out bad peanutswill be inspecting them on a tablewith a vibrating conveyer beltthat aligns the nuts and bouncesthem so workers can see the topsand bottoms.

Theyre still manually pick-ing, but its much more efficient

because youre not rolling pea-nuts around a basket, Mr.Schmitz said.

The pickers said they appreci-ate this job, any job. I didnthave any work at all before this,said one, Marie-Jo Louis-Be-atrice.

Half the number of pickers willbe needed in the new place, butthe others will be trained for oth-er jobs, Mr. Schmitz said. Totalemployment is expected to rise toabout 60 workers from 40 as theplant capacity expands fivefold.

And thats running just oneshift. Mr. Schmitz said the plantcould run many more hours if itfinds more supplies and childrento help.

Making Nutrition a Sustainable Business in Haiti

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BEN DEPP FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

THERAPEUTIC FOOD Madlene Napolien, left, and Kethia Guerrier packing containers with Nourimanba, a peanut butter used to fight Haitian malnutrition.

Abbott uses itsexpertise to helpnourish Haitians.

FROM FIELD TO FACTORY Joseph Saintfelis harvesting peanuts that will be used in the production ofNourimanba. Below, a worker sorts the peanuts, removing the bad ones.

Ben Depp contributed reportingfrom Haiti.


9/16



By JAMES DAO

WHILE working with refugeesand landmine survivors inRwanda, Bosnia and Cambo-

dia in the 1990s, a Rhodes scholarnamed Eric Greitens had an epiphanyabout teenagers in traumatic circum-stances: the ones who fared best werethe ones who helped others.

Later, after he had served in the NavySeals in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Grei-tens had conversations with woundedtroops, and a similar refrain emerged. Ifthey could not return to active duty,they wanted to find a way to serve theircommunities.

They didnt use the word serve, hesaid. They talked about becomingteachers, police officers, coaches. Butserving is what they meant.

So in 2007, after he got out of theNavy, Mr. Greitens and some friendsused their combat and disability pay tostart a nonprofit group called The Mis-sion Continues. Its goal was not to giveveterans emergency funds, social serv-ices or family vacations, like many oth-er charities, but to engage them in pub-lic service as a way of helping themheal.

Too many wounded veterans end upspending all day watching television,self-medicating, playing video games,Mr. Greitens, 37, said. Thats when

many make their worst decisions.The Mission Continues, which pro-vides stipends for veterans to work atnonprofit organizations, is one of an ar-ray of nonprofit groups created by Iraqand Afghanistan veterans to help otherveterans return to civilian life by engag-ing them in civic service. (More willprobably need such services as thecombat mission in Iraq comes to an endand troops withdraw thisyear.)

They include organizations like Tem-pered Steel, which recruits woundedveterans to give public talks about theirinjuries whether amputations, blind-ness, severe burns or post-traumaticstress as a way of breaking downstigmas concerning the disabled.

Or Purple Heart Homes, a groupfounded by two friends who were in-

jured in Iraq while serving with theArmy National Guard that builds or re-habilitates homes for disabled combat

veterans.Or Team Rubicon, a network of veter-

ans and health professionals who travelto communities from Haiti to Paki-stan to Joplin, Mo. devastated by nat-ural disasters to provide emergencyservices.

Psychologists and veterans advo-cates say there is a natural progressionfrom military service to community orhumanitarian work in the civilian world.Many troops enlist for idealistic rea-sons, wanting to serve and protect.

And even those who do not share thosereasons still learn how to work in tightlybonded units to reach a common cause a basic skill for community service.

Veterans believe in a team envi-ronment, said William McNulty, a for-mer Marine who helped found TeamRubicon. They want to be part of ateam bigger than themselves.

A 2009 survey by Civic Enterprises, aconsulting firm to nonprofits, concludedthat younger veterans feel a hunger for

continued service. The survey foundthat 90 percent agreed that helping intheir communities was important tothem, yet nearly 7 in 10 said they hadnot been contacted by institutions thatdo such work.

Veterans are untapped natural as-sets, the survey said. Many psychol-ogists and therapists say communitywork and volunteerism can also bedeeply therapeutic for wounded veter-ans.

Barbara Van Dahlen, a clinical psy-chologist who is the president andfounder of Give an Hour, a nonprofitthat provides free mental health care totroops, veterans and their families, saidveterans overwhelmed by the woundsof war tended to get caught up inthemselves.

To get the chance to do for otherscan be incredibly helpful in terms of

providing perspective and giving mean-ing in life, she said.

Jennifer Crane, 28, was a Navy vet-eran with post-traumatic stress dis-order who became addicted to drugsand was homeless after leaving theNavy in 2003. Through Give an Hour,she started getting free therapy and im-proved so much that she e-mailed Ms.Van Dahlen to ask how she could help.

Share your story, Ms. Van Dahlenreplied, and Ms. Crane became the

groups first representative giving talksabout her experiences. Today she alsovolunteers for a social networking sitefor military families called Families of aVet.

It has been very therapeutic, shesaid of the work. When you live with itinside your head, its scary, its isolat-

ing, debilitating. But when you put it outthere, someone will always say: youhelped me today.

The Mission Continues engages dis-abled veterans in public service by giv-ing them $6,000 stipends to work in non-profit organizations for seven monthsand no longer, to prevent them fromviewing it as permanent support, Mr.Greitens said. Before they leave, theymust develop exit strategies for post-fellowship life.

A study by Washington University ofthe groups first 52 fellows found that 7in 10 continued their education afterleaving the program and more than halfvolunteered at groups that provided so-cial services or assisted veterans.

Amanda Heidenreiter was an Armycaptain who became a Mission Contin-ues fellow after she was medically re-tired in 2009 for a range of disabilities,including traumatic brain injury causedby a mortar attack in Iraq and severeback problems from lifting sandbags.

During her fellowship, she workedwith Paws for Purple Hearts, an or-ganization that trains service dogs fordisabled veterans. She found the workso fulfilling that she now volunteers asan outreach coordinator for the Mission

Continues in the Washington area whenshe is not at her full-time job for an in-telligence agency.

For Veterans Day, she is recruiting 50veterans to help spruce up a publicschool in Baltimore. When Im theproject leader, Im in charge again, shesaid. I was afraid when I got out that Icould not transition those skills.

Jake Wood, a former Marine whoserved in Iraq and Afghanistan, got theidea for Team Rubicon while watchingimages of devastation in Haiti after thequake last year. I realized I could han-dle myself in Port-au-Prince and theywould be short on help, he recalled.

Now he and Mr. McNulty want to ex-pand the group by opening offices

across the United States and dispatch-ing its 600 volunteers to respond to do-mestic disasters. Its first office is sched-uled to open in Kansas City, Mo., on Vet-erans Day.

We have no intention of being an em-ployment agency, Mr. Wood said.Were trying to empower veterans byimproving their transition back into ci-vilian life, first by continuing service,which is incredibly valuable to theirmental health. But also by creating acommunity.

For Injured Veterans, Healing in Service to Others

VANESSA VALENTINE

BUILDERSA Habitat for Humanity volunteer with two Marines, Matthew Baldwin, center, and Damien Blaise.

JESSICA KOURKOUNIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

VOCAL Jennifer Crane is a veteran who gives talks on her experiences.


10/16



By BARRY MEIER

MY morning sprint through thepages of this newspapertypi-cally goes like this: the front

page, the corrections, the sports section(during baseball season) and the obitu-aries.

Two years ago, a photograph on theobituary page stopped me cold. Itshowed what looked like a display of tal-ismans, objects that resembled mila-

gros, the tiny tin replicas of legs, armsand other body parts that supplicants inMexico and Central America pin to reli-gious statues in the hope of curing aloved one.

These were medical tools, though,miniature plaster casts used to treat in-fants born with clubfoot, a cripplingbirth defect. The obituary, beautifullywritten by my colleagueDouglas Mar-tin, recounted the life of Dr. IgnacioPonseti, a Spanish-born orthopedic ex-pert who had created a nonsurgical curefor clubfoot.

As a reporter covering medicine, Ioften see its disheartening sides:over-hyped drugs, breakthrough pro-cedures that prove disastrous and theconsequences that the financial dancebetween doctors and industry can haveon patients.

I have also encountered heroes, and

Dr. Ponseti soon joined them, his life atestament to the value of service andthe power of simplicity. It made methink about what I could do to helpmake things a bit better.

Bear with me, though, because this isa confession, not a shoulder pat.

Clubfoot, which affects about 200,000infants a year, is a horribly disablingbirth defect, one that can doom a childborn in a poor country to a marginal life.In the condition, one or both feet areturned inward and down, forcing afflict-ed people to walk clumsily on the sidesof their feet.

The cure developed by Dr. Ponseti inthe 1950s relies on physical manipula-tion. In each step of the treatment, achilds clubfoot is stretched and turnedslightly outward,and a hip-to-foot plas-ter cast, like the ones shown in the pho-tograph, is then applied. After aboutfive weeks, the foot is remolded; a childthen wears a brace for a few years whilebones mature.

Dr. Ponsetis story was even morecompelling because the medical estab-lishment had ignored him, not just for afew years but for f ive decades. Surgeryremained the treatment of choice,though it was performed largely only inwealthier countries and could leave apatient with a limp.

As Dr. Ponseti put it, surgeons love

their little knives. The parents of chil-dren cured using his technique helpedchange things about a decade ago bytaking to the Internet to spread theword. And it even gets better: the Pon-seti method,as it is known, can betaught to nondoctors, making it a treat-ment that can be readily transferredanywhere in the world.

As I finished the physicians obituary,my head was spinning. In 2006, threeyears before the doctors death at age95, the Ponseti International Associa-tion was created at the University ofIowa, where Dr. Ponseti had practiced.

Its mission is simple to train doctorsand health care workers in the Ponsetimethod.

So I wondered,how could I help?How much money should I donate?Could I learn the technique? And if so,where would I go? For weeks, suchthoughts and fantasies kept rollingaround. Then, as can happen with ourbetter instincts, they disappeared be-neath the immediate demands of family,work and self.

Now, fast-forward to this fall, around

the start of the Jewish New Year. Aneditor asked me, or so I thought, what Iwas doing for forgiving. I thought itwas a reference to the holidays, then re-alized it was invitation to contribute tothis section, Giving.

I immediately though of Dr. Ponseti,and my enthusiasm and regrets abouthim welled up. Here was a chance towrite about the philanthropic legacy ofhis work.

That story is also an inspiring one,filled with people, including disciples ofDr. Ponseti, who are training hundredsof medical professionals in his tech-nique. But the philanthropic support forthat effort, much like the fate that befellthe Ponseti method for so long, remainsvery much in the shadows.

In recent years, the Ponseti Interna-tional Association has received onlyabout $350,000 annually, with $250,000of that sum coming from a couple inMinneapolis, Robert and Molly Whit-more. (By comparison, the Smile Train,a charity that works to treat anothercommon birth defect, cleft palate, re-ceived $102 million in contributions andgrants in 2009 and has celebrity sup-porters like Christie Brinkley, Tom Bro-kaw and Helena Bonham Carter.)

Mr. Whitmore, the chief technologyofficer of Seagate, a maker of computerhardware, said he and his wife were in-spired to get involved by his father, anorthopedic specialist who had studiedunder Dr. Ponseti.

Since his retirement in 2006, Dr. Wil-

liam Whitmore, now 79, has traveled toGreece, Rwanda and the Philippines totrain people in the Ponseti method.

The thing that floored us was mydad, Mr. Whitmoresaid. It is a perfectthing to eradicate clubfoot, a terrible de-formity, in such an inexpensive, low-tech way.

Mr. Whitmore said he had also triedto help the organization with his busi-ness expertise, helping it to devise a

fund-raising plan. It hasnt been easy,he added, because Dr. Ponseti, while hewas alive, was more interested in re-search than promoting his work. Thatrole has fallen to his protg, Dr. JoseMorcuende, who is now the chief medi-cal officer of the Ponseti InternationalAssociation.

Dr. Morcuende said the organiza-tions program was growing. Discus-sions are under way to start a trainingprogram throughout Mexico, and simi-lar efforts have started or are about tostart in the Philippines, Romania andIndia.

The organizations vision, Dr. Mor-cuende explained, is to create a cadre oftrained doctors and health care workersin every country, a permanent medicalinfrastructure to treat the 200,000 newcases of clubfoot that will occur everyyear.

We need about 4,000 to 5,000 good,well-trained people, he said. Currently,that group stands about 1,500 strongand he estimates that it will take sevento 10 years and about $20 million tobring it to full force.

Some children with clubfoot will con-tinue to require surgery. But Dr. Mor-cuende said studies have indicated thatthe Ponseti method works in up to 98percent of cases, though it needs to beperformed precisely and followed uprigorously to prevent a relapse. Bymedical standards, such success is im-pressive and some of Dr. Ponsetis disci-ples have found that the technique hasbeen used on older children, includingsome who were teenagers.

A doctor is needed to perform a minorprocedure after the work of manipulat-ing and casting the foot has finished. Soas I spoke to Dr. Morcuende, I workedour conversation around to the issueabout which I had obsessed when read-ing his mentors obituary: Could any-one be trained in the Ponseti method?

No, was his answer. One needed tounderstand the foots complex anatomy,and so physical therapists or hospitalworkers skilled in making casts are bestsuited for training.

I was a little disappointed. But thatsO.K. There is always writing and donat-ing money. And thats good, becausethose are things I can do.

Finding Inspiration in a Doctors Legacy

NOW RUNNINGAbove, a 5K racefor a clubfoot charity includedTrista Thompson, 6, once a pa-tient. Right, casts for children.

ABOVE, STEPHEN MALLY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; BELOW, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA DEPARTMENT OF ORTHOPEDICS AND REHABILITATION


11/16



By JODI RUDOREN

NEWARK

THE people in charge of giv-ing away $100 million ofMark Zuckerbergs money

to improve the lives of children inthis city operate from a drab war-ren of offices downtown, wherethe walls are empty except for afew whiteboards left behind byanother nonprofit organization.

There are five unwelcomingblack plastic chairs in the foyerfor visitors, part of a package ofused desks, filing cabinets andshelves picked up for $9,000. Themicrowave in the kitchenette isalso a hand-me-down.

Until a couple of weeks ago more than a year after Mr. Zuck-erberg, a co-founder of Facebook,announced his gift to much fan-fare on The Oprah WinfreyShow the sign on the doorwas a sheet of 8.5-by-11 papertaped to the glass, and the peoplebehind it lacked business cards.

Everybody is complainingthat we dont have pictures up,said Gregory Taylor, presidentand chief executive of the or-ganization, the Foundation forNewarks Future, pointing to a

stack of donated photographs onthe floor that he said he mightnever hang.

People are really sad thatwere in start-up mode, Mr. Tay-lor added. But we kind of like it.We want to be lean and scrappy.

Mr. Taylor, a 43-year-old who islong experienced in foundationand youth work, is in many waysliving the do-gooders dream,flush with cash, attention and arare alliance of public officials athis flank. But turning $100 million actually, $200 million, presum-ing the mayor manages to raisethe matching funds Mr. Zucker-berg required into transforma-tional change amid intractableproblems may not be as much funas it sounds.

Mr. Taylor started work here

June 13, nine months into the ini-tiatives five-year timetable, fac-ing significant suspicion in aplace notoriously wary of out-siders. He started with a 100-dayroadmap focused on building theorganization, hiring staff (five sofar, expected to grow to 12 even-tually) and drafting a budget($1.5 million for operations thisyear, also likely to grow).

He said he spent half his timemeeting with stakeholders andnaysayers in a constant quest toengage the community (com-munity is one of Mr. Taylors fa-vorite words). Over the last twoweeks, he has been completing astrategic plan to present to thefoundations board that high-lights five broad priorities: earlychildhood education, teaching

quality/principal leadership,school options, community en-gagement and out-of-schoolyouth.

The foundation has given awaysome $7 million in about 20grants (it has also raised $48 mil-lion of the match). Mr. Taylor not-ed that many of these gifts tohelp start several high schools,expand Teach for America, cre-ate a parent call center and give$10,000 awards to innovativeteachers, among other things were made before he arrived, andsaid there would soon be a shift inapproach.

Lets get after this and makebig plays and make transforma-tion as opposed to the drip, drip,drip that sometimes character-izes education reform, he said. I

mean multimillion-dollar plays.Tens of millions of dollars. Theway in which it gets invested andto whom, were figuring out.

One of the problems with edu-cation reform in general is howlong it takes, he added whenasked about the five-year clockticking away. The urgency wehave matches the urgency peoplehave for their kids.

Newark has long been on theunhappy end of many socioeco-nomic indexes, particularly thoseconcerning youth. Thirty-fivepercent of its children live belowthe poverty line, more than threetimes the state average; 18 per-cent of them live in familieswhere neither parent has a job;71 percent are on Medicaid or thestate equivalent (15 percent have

no health coverage at all).In a school district of 40,000students, 62 percent receive freeor reduced-price lunches. Nearlyhalf of those who enter highschool do not finish. Among thosewho go on to college, 98 percentneed remediation.

The Zuckerberg gift seemed tocome out of nowhere, the resultof a remarkable alignment be-tween the mayor, Cory A. Booker,a black Democrat who sees sav-ing the citys children as a call-ing, and the governor, ChrisChristie, a white Republican whoviews the citys problems as aplague holding back the statesprogress. That the state has since1995 controlled the school districtthrough a receivership only en-hanced the opportunity for bold,

surgical strikes.But many have questioned

throwing money at the problem Newark schools already spend

$22,000 a pupil, more than doublethe national average, and likemany inner-city districts hashardly seen a return on that in-vestment at test time (less thanhalf of fourth graders are profi-cient in English).

Mr. Booker, who grew up in thesuburbs and attended Stanford,Oxford and Yale, has long beentagged as an outsider, so bringingin Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Taylor

and a new superintendent fromNew York has further irked someof the natives.

Were happy that new monieshave entered into the district be-cause it allows us to do creativethings, said Alturrick Kenney,34, a political consultant andNewark native who was electedto the Newark school board thisspring. Were just looking formore influence in how the moneyis allocated.

While Newarks nine-memberschool board is advisory, sincethe district is under state control,Mr. Kenney said it typically votedon even donations like a mirrorbut for some reason we have yetto vote on any grant thats beenmade by the Foundation for New-arks Future.

Mr. Kenney said he shook Mr.Taylors hand once when theyshared the stage at a schoolevent, but that they had not hada formal conversation. Otherswho were invited for meetingssaid they were cautiously opti-mistic.

I had some concerns in thespring around making sure thatwe engage our parents and ourcommunity in intelligent ways,said Shavar D. Jeffries, a schoolboard member and lawyer at theCenter for Social Justice at SetonHall University, who spent aboutan hour recently in Mr. Taylorsoffice. From what he said I thinkhis goals are the right ones. Obvi-ously the proof is in the pudding,so we shall see in the monthsahead if the process and invest-

ments reflect those priorities.Joseph Del Grosso, president

of the Newark Teachers Union,also spent some time with Mr.Taylor in recent weeks. Ill bepatient until I see that its eitherworking or not working, and thenIll make a judgment, he said.There was a lot of media atten-tion about the money; now it hasto manifest itself. Otherwise its

just a dog and pony show. I dontgo to dog and pony shows. Theonly thing I like about ponies isbetting on them.

Mr. Taylor, whose salary is$382,000, was selected after a na-tional search (he has still never

spoken to Mr. Zuckerberg,though he did interview withSheryl Sandberg, Facebookschief operating officer). Jen Hol-leran, Mr. Zuckerbergs repre-sentative on the foundationsboard, would not say how manyapplicants there were, but saidthere were residents of Newarkamong them.

An admirer of Bob Marley,Thurgood Marshall and Gandhi,

Mr. Taylor has spent the lasteight years at the W. K. KelloggFoundation, most recently livingon the campus of the Universityof Michigan, where his wife isdean of students at the lawschool; they have two children, a16-year-old son and a 10-year-olddaughter.

He acknowledged that thefoundations rhetoric got aheadof our executions, and said hewas working to correct that bydiligently meeting with, as he putit, early adopters and early op-posers, to familiarize himselfwith Newarks riot-scarred histo-ry and gloves-off political culture.

The easiest thing we can do iswrite checks, Mr. Taylor said ofhis new role. How do you thinkabout knowledge transfer and ca-

pacity building and sustainabili-ty?

Growing up in Harlem andOakland, Calif., Mr. Taylor said hehad drunk a potent cocktail ofpublic service and education,mixed by his career military fa-ther, who fought in World War IIand Korea, and his mother, a lit-erature professor who special-ized in black women writers.

After college he worked in theManhattan Valley Youth Pro-gram, and when one of its mem-bers got caught up in the CentralPark jogger case of 1989, he head-ed to law school believing thelaw would be an even greater ad-vocate for kids.

But Mr. Taylor never workedas a lawyer. He founded a non-profit in Washington, Community

Impact, that is now defunct, thenentered the foundation world. Foreight years, he also coached ayouth basketball team, the Be-

thesda Magic, that won manytournaments and Maryland statechampionship. Every summer,regardless of where I was, Iwould fly back to D.C. and coach,he said. I would love to coach ateam in Newark.

For now, Mr. Taylor lives Sun-day nights to Friday mornings ina small apartment he describedas 100 yards from the office,and returns on weekends to Ann

Arbor. He said the family would join him in Newark in the sum-

mer of 2013, once his son hadcompleted high school.

By then, there will be littlemore than two years remainingon the five-year clock, and muchof Mr. Zuckerbergs millionsshould have been spent. Butthere will undoubtedly be plentyleft to do.

It took this community dec-ades of disinvestment to get intothe situation that its in, Mr. Tay-lor said in his office, where asquare magnet on his desk ad-vises, Begin Anywhere. Itsgoing to take a long time to getout.

Putting Zuckerbergs Millions to Work for Schools

A desire to make bigplays with a $100

million gift toNewarks troubled

schools.

OZIER MUHAMMAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES

ENGAGEDGregory Taylor leads the foundation charged withimproving Newarks schools.


12/16


By JOHN LELAND

LYNN DOWLING BRUNO had

never heard of the WrensNest, a nonprofit organiza-

tion that preserves the home ofthe writer Joel Chandler Harris.Ms. Bruno, 49, lives in NorthernCalifornia. Wrens Nest is in At-lanta. But when the opportunityarose to do volunteer work forthe nonprofit this year, helping itraise its Internet profile, she

jumped at it.Ms. Bruno had enjoyed Har-

riss tales of Brer Rabbit as achild, she said. But she had morepractical motives as well.

Ms. Bruno, who works in thespecialized field of search mar-keting, was in a professional rut.She had been laid off from her jobmanaging a $2.5 million searchmarketing campaign for a healthcare provider in California. Andthough she had been in the fieldsince 2003, she had never qual-ified for a certification that Goo-gle offers to search marketers be-cause she did not have enoughhands-on experience. Withoutthis credential, she felt, her op-tions were limited.

She did what anyone would do:she took to the Internet, whereshe found a new organization

called Media Cause, started by aformer Google executive to pairsearch marketers with nonprofitorganizations that needed theirskills. Ms. Bruno had done lots ofvolunteering in the past, but al-most always for organizationsthat simply needed a body. Mykids school wanted me to lami-nate and stuff envelopes, shesaid.

Through Media Cause, she wasable to do for Wrens Nest whatshe could not do at her previous

job run a hands-on campaignwith little corporate oversightand near total autonomy. Thoughshe was not paid for her work,which she said took a total of 50to 60 hours, she was looking fortangible financial benefits.

I had no problem doing it forfree, she said. I was partly us-

ing it as a learning thing. Also Iwas very aware that I could get agood recommendation if I per-formed well. So I gave as good aneffort as I would if I was gettingtop dollar.

Looking back, she views theproject as a total success. Themuseum vastly increased its Webtraffic. Ms. Bruno got her certif-icate, which helped her landthree paid consulting jobs.

I added a whole bunch of peo-ple to my network, got a greatrecommendation from WrensNest on LinkedIn and gotblogged about on Media Cause,she said. You can put that onyour rsum. It absolutely paidoff. And it was f

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