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Dreams InDeed International
Post Office Box 30730
Phoenix, Arizona   85046-0730

You Must Dream!  

You Must Dream!
More Than Good Intentions.
What is the Dream?
Discerning a Dream.
Keeping Dreams Alive.
We're Dreamers, Too!
Join us by taking action today:

1.  Donate via PayPal.  

Donate
 
2.  Write a check payable to Dreams InDeed and send it to: 

Dreams InDeed International

P.O. Box 30730  

Phoenix, AZ 85046

 

3.  Invite others to join you by forwarding this email to a colleague. 



4.  Check out our web page quotes to the right of the banner picture on each page and email us your favorite.   
See one of our favorites by Dr. Seuss!

Also Featured
Caregiver and client
The exchange of love and respect: more valuable than cash.

 Review our latest publication, 'Harnessing Values for Impact Beyond Profit...' 

Dear Friend,

"I'm a dreamer!  People think I'm crazy," exclaimed an elegant socialite.  David had just showcased a dreamer case as chair of a panel at the American University of Beirut business school.  She had made her way upstream through the departing crowd to him.  She added, almost pleading, "Can I dream?" 

David's response stunned her:  "Can you dream?  You must dream!"
    
Thus, our next adventure was underway.  We were soon winding our way through Beirut's inner-city alleys.  Her community center was embedded in this hard place.   Blank eyes and scrawled graffiti shouted silent stories of poverty, abuse, violence.
More Than Good Intentions. 
She relived her story with us.  "I was born into privilege, showered with love.  I did not earn it.  There are those who look at others and say with bitterness 'why them and not me?'  I started by looking at the less fortunate and said, 'Why me and not them?'  From childhood I knew I must share my blessings.  I know that poverty may not be eradicated, but misery can be alleviated." 

  

David speaking to prospective dreamer team
The necessity of the dream.

She discovered this area's overlooked elderly.  They felt her gentle touch, bathing them, washing their hair, trimming their nails.  Awakened from loneliness, they learned to laugh, sing, and even dance again.

 

She bonded with the disadvantaged children.  These kids traded their loitering for tutoring.  And they blossomed with music and song, drama and dance, painting and pottery.

   

In fourteen years of no-holds-barred effort, her one-woman campaign had morphed into quality programs, a dedicated board, talented staff.  But the needs soon dwarfed her personal resources.  And then, her high teas and black-tie dinner fundraisers fatigued the charity of her well-heeled friends.  

 

She was tired, flagging.  But even more, she was unsatisfied.  So we started with the critical question. 

What is the Dream?

"How will it look when your dream comes true?"  We clarified, "Not activities.  Not aims."  We pressed, "Describe mission accomplished.  So real we see it.  Smell it.  Taste it."

 

The look on her face said, "You've got to be joking."  Agitated, she explained, "Everyone else tells me I'm silly.  Be realistic.  Don't be foolish.  Focus on the possible.  Sell measurable results."  

Her angst revealed that her capacity to dream, like most of us, had been bruised, battered, and buried.  Her professional advisors and practical friends had mistaken her dream for mere fantasy.  

Were they right?  Is she a silly fool?  Or an inspired dreamer?
Discerning a Dream.

But how to distinguish an inspired dream from a fantasy or merely a good idea?  We've distilled three criteria:

 

1.  Do the poor - the last, the least, the lost - celebrate it as great news?  For example, in a country now engulfed by civil war, one dreamer weaves a  volunteer network of hundreds to sustain families with mentally challenged members.  Although it's too dangerous to travel to meet together, these desperate families celebrate the emotional, spiritual, and material lifelines extended by local volunteers.

2.  Does it invite everyone to participate, and require everyone to change - including the dreamer? 

Co-workers on a break.
Co-workers playing around on a break.

Another dreamer employs marginalized women from conflicting sects to create products for sale.  She patiently endured low outputs from one trainee's eighteen-month learning curve.  And her employees, who before would have not even greeted each other in public, now work side-by-side as friends.  

 
3.  Does it inspire love that bleeds for its fulfillment?  Yet another dreamer's team trains and employs marginalized youth to provide home health care for house-bound patients.  If a caregiver is suddenly unable to work, a supervisor substitutes to serve, even through the night.  The staff jokingly include one supervisor's husband on the team since he volunteers as her chauffeur, day or night. 
 
Like these others, our new prospect showed the telltale signs of carrying a dream.    
Keeping Dreams Alive.        
Dreams mobilize others to see the invisible, hearts to endure the insufferable, hands to create the incredible. 

For more than ten hours over three days, we listened and questioned, probed and prodded.  Like a midwife, Dreams InDeed
Storyboarding to draw out the dream.
Storyboarding eilicits the dream.
accompanies expectant dreamers.  The dream isn't our "baby."  We don't conceive it.  We recognize and help deliver it doing all we can to ensure viability.  An intense, agonizing, soul-searching process.  By taking a history and story-boarding, elements of a dream began to form.  Restored community; children young and old; not charity but an exchange between partners; beauty, dignity, harmony. 

Her dream looms ever before her.  She cannot settle for less.  But she faces no-nonsense practical hurdles - finding volunteers, paying
bills, and meeting payroll.  Leveling with us she said, "We're at a point where our very survival is at stake.  We are not even sure if we will be here to live the dream."  This is unfortunately no exaggeration.

Reality is inescapable.  Yet can the birth of a dream entice others to pay the price of transformation?  To engage both their hearts and wallets?  To do and become more than they ever imagined?

Our answer is a resounding "Yes!"  Dreams InDeed is committed to weave networks to equip and invest to enable these dreamers to endure, turning their dreams into deeds.   
We're Dreamers, Too!
They asked, "Why do you help us when we can't pay?"  Our answer is simple.  We also have a dream for our generation - "a light in every dark place."  Birthing  another dream means another light will pierce the darkness, and serve to inspire yet others to achieve their dreams.  

Expectant dreamers are asking us for help, and we are asking for yours.  Our goal is to raise $20,000 by June 30th which will enable us to fan these dimly burning wicks into flame.  Please donate via our web page on PayPal,  http://dreamsindeed.org/donate/ or send a check with a note "You Must Dream" to our Phoenix address at the beginning of this email.

Envisioning those flickers of light in hard places,
Janice signature
Janice Hayashi Haskell
Vice-President for Program Development            

Image: lobster20 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

 Lighted Candles:  Image: lobster20 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Join us by taking action today: 

  • Donate Via PayPal   
Donate
 
  • Make a check payable to Dreams InDeed International.  Mail check to:

Dreams InDeed International, P.O. Box 30730, Phoenix, AZ 85046 


  • Invite others to accompany you by forwarding this email to a colleague. 



Please contact us with your questions and how we may be of better service to you.