Southern Weddings

It’s Auction-Off-Your-Boss Day here at Southern Weddings!  (It’s a long story.)  To support young activists, Spencer Brodsky, in his efforts to help the people of Haiti, Emily and I are auctioning off an hour with Lara Casey.  What does one do with an hour of one-on-one Ms. Casey time, you ask?  Visit our post from this morning here.

As promised, we’ve got snippets from our interview with Spencer himself, the eighteen-year-old high school senior who has launched international charities Stoves for Darfur, Stoves for Rwanda and Tents in Haiti.  He’s also interview a lot of famous people, including Senator Hillary Clinton, George Clooney and Sandra Day O’Connor.  Cool, huh?

Read on to learn more about the tennis-love high school senior from Maryland and don’t forget to place your bid for Lara Casey here!  The auction ends on Saturday, February 27.

Tell us a bit about yourself.  I am an eighteen-year-old senior at The Bullis School in Potomac Maryland.  My extracurricular activities include global humanitarian aid projects and interviewing accomplished individuals who have positively impacted our world.  Other interests include tennis and long-distance running.
Three adjectives that best describe you: Driven, determined and curious.
When did you first catch the humanitarian bug?  What made you realize you could affect change in a national and even global way? I’m often asked why I’ve spent years interviewing accomplished individuals who have impacted our world and why I have chosen to help strangers in Darfur, Rwanda and now Haiti.  I attribute the answer to both of these questions to conversations I had with former Senator Hillary Clinton and Mavis Leno, Chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation. It was these two meetings (the first with Senator Clinton in 2004 when I was just twelve-years-old and the second with Mavis Leno in 2007) that would serve as my introduction to social activism.
We’ve been keeping up with some of your most recent efforts to help the people of Haiti.  What have you done so far and what’s next on the list? Following the earthquake in Haiti, the immediate need for food and shelter was obvious.  In the last few weeks, I have hosted local fundraisers (including a Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day fundraiser) and have posted events using Twitter.  Twitter has proven to be a great way to reach many people quickly.  Now I am hoping to move the project to a national and even global level.  To accomplish this, I am looking for find celebrity supporters like Oprah, Ellen and Dr. Phil, after which I hope to do a story for CNN.  When CNN International ran a short segment on my Darfur project in December 2008, we raised over $80,000 in one week.
Explain the urgency of this project and why everyone should get involved. This project is urgent because of the widespread devastation and lack of food and shelter in Haiti.  As famine and disease spread, things can go from bad to worse.  Providing tents is only part of the solution, but shelter is an essential element in Haiti’s road to recovery.
What do you ultimately hope to accomplish? My goal is two-fold:  Raise awareness for the immediate need for tents in Haiti, and raise donations, which go directly to CHF International’s Tents In Haiti program.
How can we help? You can help me by spreading the word and increasing awareness.  The success of this project depends on many people working together.  I like the quote from Herman Melville, “We cannot live for ourselves alone.  Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these synthetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”
You’re a high school senior.  What are your post-graduation plans?  Any idea what you might major in?  In September, I will attend the University of Maryland on a pre-medicine track that will hopefully lead to a career in public health.  I also will be part of the Civicus Program, a living and learning experience that embraces citizenship, leadership and community building.
Where do you see yourself in five years as a new college graduate?  What about ten? Hopefully in 5 years, I will be in medical school.  In ten, I hope to be using what I have learned and experienced to pursue a career in public health.