People pics: Sandie Ward's Fashion Show, Mandarin Fine Art Gallery

A homegrown event by aspiring fashion designer Sandie was an amazing showcase of high-style fashions (bustiers, anyone?). Many thanks to Sandie for making it a benefit for Friendship Shelter, which helps highly motivated homeless adults from ALL of Orange County!

Speak out!

They did it!

Numbers haven't yet been tallied, but from the looks of the Boutique Benefit Saturday at Laguna Presbyterian Church, the hard work of Evonne Kane (second from left, in the dots) and her team of helpers paid off!

Their goal was to raise enough to pay Lisa, the amazing and wonderful caseworker who has been donating her time at the Laguna Resource Center to help families in need and homeless folks who need assistance. The amount and quality of the items donated from the closets and boutiques of Laguna were outstanding, and brought out the bargain-hunters in droves. This Lagunan bought two new tops from Lala, normally $98 each, for $20 apiece, and a cool brown suede coat for the same amount, plus a few other goodies. As promised, there were tons of designer items from some of the upscale shops in town, and a separate roomful of practical lower-priced and children's items. The cheerful helpers deserve a big round of applause, as does Evonne, who dreamed up the idea.

This homegrown fundraiser breathed new life into the Laguna Resource Center, a tiny non-profit that relies on the help of the community it serves. If you want to truly be of service, support organizations such as this one in its work to help people who need it the most. Some people think organizations like this draw homeless people to Laguna. I say they're here anyway -- why you not give them a place to shower, make phone calls, get food and give them the dignity every human deserves? A society is only as strong as its weakest link; if we rely on the Darwinian theory that only the wealthy or well-connected deserve to live here, we can't call ourselves much of a community, can we?

What Happens When People Care

Call me a sucker for a happy ending, but I burst into joyful tears when I saw this photo and e-vite from my friends J&K, a couple with hearts bigger than Texas. It was an invitation to celebrate an adoption of two children they aren't related to and whom they could have felt sorry for, written a check, and moved on. But they didn't.

(That's a photo of Victor and Vanessa with their adoptive parents, and the judge who made it official.)

My friends J&K were able to see the bigger picture that these two children faced, put aside their daily concerns and stretch the boundaries of their good will, patience and budget to give the kids a fighting chance at life.

J&K both have busy careers, two young sons with full schedules of Little League and school activities, a house to maintain, interests and hobbies of their own...... But when their longtime nanny was run down and killed in a crosswalk on Coast Highway in October 2005 by an inattentive lady in her big SUV, J&K (I suspect they'd rather I didn't use their names) saw the handwriting on the wall for these two, then ages 3 and 8, and recognized a harsh and uncertain future for them.

With the children destined to end up in foster care and with no guarantee that they would be kept together, J&K took them into their home for nine months as temporary foster parents. An optimistic and cheerful couple, I know this move was a big drain on their emotional and financial resources and a strain on the family unit, but to them it was never a question. They patiently facilitated the eventual movement of the children to another foster home of a generous family with financial resources, a similar ethnic background and a fervent desire for more children to love. That foster family officially adopted Victor and Vanessa on April 16th.

I'll happily attend that party, grateful for the opportunity to know J&K and to have observed the real "Secret" -- that we are here to help each other even -- perhaps especially -- if it takes us outside our comfort zone. That they cared enough to go to bat for the futures of Victor and Vanessa demonstrates that bravery comes in many forms, and sometimes it lives quietly just down the street.

Got Extra Babysugar?

A few weeks ago, some friends and I threw some $20 bills into a kitty and became investors in a mini-mart in Ghana, a clothing shop in Azerbaijan, and two retail establishments in Samoa. (That's a photo of Patience Baah, mother of two, in her food shop in Ghana. She's about to expand it to create a dining area for her customers.)

We are microlenders through an organization called Kiva. (www.kiva.org). Micro-lending makes small loans to poor people to start or expand businesses and build better lives for themselves. The loans are almost always repaid. On the Kiva website, you can browse, find a project that interests you and make a loan of $25 or more. When enough lenders sign up for a particular project, the loan is funded, going through existing grass-roots organizations in the region that manage the loans, disbursing and collecting repayments. They report back on the borrower's progress via the easy-to-use Kiva web site.

Samoan shopkeeper Moevao Nuutasi requested an $800 loan "to purchase soda, snacks, soaps, mutton flaps, turkey tails, and chicken" for her shop, Victory Mini-Mart. She has begun paying it back; my friends and I will likely reinvest in another loan.

On the Kiva website, you can create a profile. My favorite profile is of a co-lender, Natalie. Occupation: baby. Why does she lend? "I've got extra babysugar!"

So do I, Natalie. Let's put it to good use and buy some turkey tails and mutton flaps.

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Want to learn more about microlending through kiva.org? Check out New York TImes reporter Nicholas Kristof's video of a surprise visit he made to his business partner, a baker in Kabul, Afghanistan (simply cut and paste this link into your browser):
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=FEEDROOM186917

Just Shoot Me

By now you've read and heard the rather bizarre story about the two shooting deaths at the Montage. All the facts aren't being reported yet, and the identities and details of the two dead, a couple apparently involved in an altercation, have not been released.

But after last week in Blacksburg, Va., and this weird event...
Can we talk about guns?
Do we really want everyone to have the right to bear arms? Other "first-world" nations think we're totally nuts to allow citizens to have handguns and semiautomatic weapons. Are they right?
What do you think?