WE PROMISE
The Newsletter of “Promise Thinkers”
March 12, 2007, Vol. 4, No. 10
"Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the
richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work."
-- Robert Orben
 Ewa and I just finalized plans for Thursday’s Annual Member’s Breakfast with InterContinental Hotel’s Food & Beverage Manager Thomas Fehlbier. I think we covered everything that needs to be done from flowers to place settings, piano to dual-screen projectors, microphones to menu…
Most exciting for us is that 120 of you (60 CEOs) representing 87 different companies have confirmed reservations for our “You Raise Me Up” extravaganza. Festivities begin at 0830 in the Opera Ballroom located on the 2nd floor of the InterContinental Hotel. Don’t worry about not being able to find the room because our Foundation’s Management Board and Advisory Council will be on hand early to greet each of you and point you in the right direction.
As is our tradition, we have many surprises planned, and we will do our very best to have you off to the office by 0945. We will be presenting our Gold Seal of Approval Awards to our member companies, and we think we have come up with a full-proof way of doing it in an expeditious, entertaining way. We will debut our new DVD “You Raise Me Up,” and for those of you who well up easily, I suggest you have a few extra Kleenex on hand, or one super-sized clean-white “hanky” will do.
I don’t want to give away too much, but I will tell you that Thomas and his F&B staff will prepare a surprise menu, we will be visited by strangers from all points on the globe, and we will have some very exciting news about the future of our Foundation in making life better for some of Poland’s most needy children.
See you Thursday morning!
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ECCO SHOES AND WITOLD CHRZANOWSKI SAVE THE ZARANSKO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FROM EXTINCTION |
 I shared a sad story about the Zaransko Elementary School in our Newsletter two week ago in hopes that our readers would help us save this one tiny PromiseLand school from extinction because it didn’t have indoor toilets.
The Zaransko Elementary School is in the Drawsko Pomorskie School District and it became a part of our Foundation’s Hot-Meal-Program just this year. Due to the fact that 15% of the school’s families recently moved to Ireland seeking employment, the school’s student population, and budget, had been reduced to 48 students.
The school’s Director Lidia Sawka, recently gave me her wish list of most needed items for her school. She "shocked" me when she told me that her school would be closed by District officials unless she installed 3 indoor toilets in her school. It was up to Lidia to save the Zaransko Elementary School, and she asked for our help.
As you can see above, the outdoor toilets are in deplorable condition. They have no heat or hot water. The roof leaks badly, and to make matters worse, the school can’t afford toilet paper, paper towels or cleaning supplies.
Danuta Dabrowska, Chief Financial Officer and Management Board member of Ecco Shoes Poland called last Friday to say that Ecco had transferred the money to build the three new toilets inside the Zaransko Elementary School. The same day, I received an email from a great friend of the Foundation in New York City, Witold Chrzanowski, who said he would make a transfer to us to be sure that there would be enough money available to cover additional construction costs, taxes, and supplies for the new toilets.
The photo below was sent by some of the Zaransko Elementary School Promise Kids expressing their delight and gratitude to our Foundation, Ecco and Wotold. The quotation by John Paul II on the photo reads, “Man is great not by what he has, not by what he owns, but by what he shares with others.” By sharing this way with the Zaransko Elementary School, President Peter Mark and Danuta Dabrowska of Ecco Shoes, and Witold Chrzanowski of God TV in New York, are certainly great and the school will remain open to serve the 48 kids in the small village of Zaransko.
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PEACE INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM GETS EARLY MORNING EXPOSURE |
For those of you who get up at 0 -dark - 30, you may have caught the early morning appearance last Thursday of Tetley General Manager Sandeep Das, International PEACE Intern Juan Roman from Peru, and myself, on the early morning Coffee and Tea Program televised on Polish TV 1. It was a real “Kick” for us, and we think we were lucid enough to tell the story of how the Foundation and Tetley supports the AIESEC PEACE International Internship program at SGH, and that we have 24 Interns in Poland teaching tolerance and basic English skills to poor Polish kids throughout the country.
We received raving reviews and Sandeep and Juan are available for autograph signings over the next few weeks.
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