As you may know, in March of 2015 each Mixte team member was given a personal and important task—to spend $300 and one day off in celebration of Mixte’s three-year anniversary.
We were free to spend the time and money on ourselves, on others, on causes that engage us or simply to give ourselves some rest and relaxation. In essence, the world was our oyster, or at least to the extent that $300 and one day could buy. It was quite exciting.
I knew immediately that the decision would be tough – after all, there are so many worthy things to do and causes to support. I agonized about whether to pick a favorite from the clients Mixte supports professionally, or perhaps address a local issue plaguing San Diego. So many choices could almost be paralyzing.
By August of 2015 I broke the paralysis and made a decision about where my money would go and why. Because their plight mirrored so many of the issues our clients address (homelessness, water shortage, social injustice and others) and because their situation had clearly reached global crisis levels, I decided that some of the more than one million people fleeing violence and drought is Syria deserved my Mixte money and my attention.
I felt even more sure of that decision when my husband and I planned a trip to the Czech Republic and Austria for the week of Thanksgiving and the week following. Seeing the copious coverage of their treacherous journey to and through Europe in the months leading up to our trip only bolstered that desire, and very much reminded me of the story of my mother-in-law’s early life on the run from Nazi’s through many of the European countries these refugees now pass through. Her fascinating and stressful story is worthy of a blog (or a book) in itself, and perhaps someday I will write it, but for now we can suffice to say our current humanitarian crisis had a good number of the same stresses and perils my mother-in-law had once experienced.
By the time our trip arrived, I was resolute and at peace with my decision. Those $300 dollars were signed, sealed and to be delivered as soon as I returned to San Diego. But something changed when I was in Vienna, and then again when I was in Prague.
What changed?
In the 12 days I was away, back in the United States three mass shootings had shattered hundreds of lives. Two took place in the same day. More than 50 people were shot in those incidents alone, 21 of them were killed.
I want to be clear that the tragedy of gun violence was never lost on me. Like so many Americans, every one of the far-too-common mass shootings made me sad, angry, frustrated and eager to seek a solution. But there was something about watching the coverage on British, French, Italian, Czech, German and other European outlets that flipped a switch. The bewildered questions about Americans’ love of guns, the lack of common-sense regulation and our ability to stomach more than 300 often random and deadly shootings year after year clearly confounded them. Something in the sentiments expressed and in the analysis of American cultural ideals made me want to take action immediately. This too is a very real crisis, and one that deserves action.
So that is what I did—put my money where my conscience is. In addition to my support of refugees, I donated half my Mixte money to developing common-sense solutions to end the gun violence that killed more Americans than all U.S. wars combined.
That is my story of guns and refugees. Where would your $300 and one day off go if you were to decide right now? No matter what your answer or your convictions, I encourage you to take action where your heart takes you. It really is up to us to have the courage to change our world. I am grateful to have an employer who agrees.
Want to learn more about the organizations that received my Mixte money? Learn more here:
- Carry the Future (a great Today Show story on this organization can be found here)
