"It was difficult when I lost my mother last year. I came back from Texas to bury her, and I was homeless for six months. I used alcohol to get through it---I'm not gonna lie---but I'm not drinking anymore. I look to God now. He's blessed me with an apartment, so now I don't have to live on the streets."
"I work at St. Jude, and tonight is a really big night for us. We have a prom for the teenage patients every year. Prom dresses and tuxedos are donated, stylists donate their services, and limos pick up the patients at the Target House. When they arrive on the St. Jude Campus, the red carpet is rolled out. Staff and volunteers line either side of it as the kids (along with friends or dates) make their entrance to have that special night that every teenager should have. This year's theme is 'Under the Sea.' "At St. Jude, we try to replicate those pinnacle childhood experiences like Sibling Days, kindergarten graduation, and high school graduation. It's important to have these events because the patients are just normal kids who happen to be in a tough situation." St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has been described as the crown jewel of Memphis. Research conducted here continues to change how the global medical community treats cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases. Care for children with these diseases is provided at no charge to the patient's family.
"My wife and I have a 1-year-old baby girl and just found out we're expecting again. As a dad, it's important to me to be a leader in our home. I want to raise my little girl to be not just independent, but a leader herself, confident in who she is. Being a strong man of faith, I want to instill faith in her, so that she'll take God with her wherever she goes. I want her to be treated with respect as she grows up, like a lady, like a queen."
"I'm a pediatrician and an official hugger. I've even got the card. I give out grateful rocks too. Here, put one in your pocket. Then, when you happen to feel it, just say to yourself, 'I'm soooo grateful.' Got a question for you: Why did the tomato blush? Because he saw the salad dressing! And one piece of advice: Don't play poker in the jungle; there are soooo many cheetahs! I have to tell you, life is still fun!" A 'grateful rock' for your pocket:
"I came to the United States from Cambodia in August of 2014 through the Harpswell Foundation's partnership with Rhodes College. I feel very lucky to be able to further my education here. Phnom Penh is a big city, so there are many similarities to Memphis, but there are also differences. For example, the food is not the same. We eat rice every day, but Americans don't have it so often. We put our hands together and bow when we greet each other; that's not done here. And the weather is hot most of the year in Cambodia. I'm so glad that I got to see snow in Memphis! Another difference I've noticed is in the way young people interact with older people. In Cambodia, we don't joke around so much with older people or treat each other as equals. There is not that level of familiarity. We would never call older people by their first name. We address women as 'Auntie' and men as 'Uncle', always with respect." The Harpswell Foundation is committed to empowering and educating girls and women in developing countries. Although there are no legal barriers to keep young women from getting a higher education in Cambodia, they are often prevented from doing so by the lack of a place to live. Young men can live at the Buddhist temple while they study; young women cannot. As a result, education is effectively denied them. The Harpswell Foundation is working to change that. To date, they have built two dormitories for young women at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, providing housing for 80 women. They also provide scholarships and conduct after-hours programs focused on leadership skills for women. Every year, they send their top four graduates to America for graduate education. Makara is one of those students.
"I want to be a police officer when I grow up so I can protect people. I know a policeman. He's tall, and he's a good guy."
“The second world war ended when I was 6 1/2 years old, but the things that happened, I will never forget. We lived in an apartment house in Berlin, and bombs saturated the city night after night. We slept in our clothes so that we could move quickly if the siren went off. When it did, everyone in the building hurried down to the cellar, bringing wet towels to hold over our faces, and we sat in the dark for one, two, three hours at a time while the bombs exploded outside. You can imagine how terrifying that was to a child. To pass the time and to take our minds off the bombing, neighbors would promise a teaspoon of sugar to my 4-year-old sister to sing her little Christmas songs. We stayed there in the dark until another siren went off, signaling the all clear. “By the time the war was over, the infrastructure of the Berlin had been destroyed. There was no electricity, no food, and no means to buy anything. It was a daily struggle to survive, to have something to eat. Women were put to work cleaning the streets, clearing away the rubble, and scraping the mortar off the bricks so that they could be used again to rebuild. The Russians continued to terrorize the city. My mother kept us close while she worked. She kept an eye on us and we on her because the soldiers would rape a woman alone. I remember the swarms of flies in the city from all the corpses too. There weren’t enough coffins to bury everyone. There were bodies everywhere, in the streams, in the fields, in the rubble, and we were given shots to prevent a typhus epidemic. “I started to school, but I couldn’t take anything in. I was too shell-shocked. In the winter, Mother pulled me on a sled to school because I had no shoes. She cut up carpet pieces and tied them to our feet. There were no toothbrushes and not enough water to wash our bodies or our hair. We had nothing. “Sometime after the war, my grandmother and grandfather received a little apartment, and it was my grandfather’s job as the maintenance man to collect the rent and make repairs. There was still no electricity, so in the evenings my grandfather worked by the light of an oil lamp, making furniture from the wood he could salvage. This table, this cabinet. He made both of them with his own hands. “This doll is the first one I had after the war. My mother made the little outfit and bonnet from the silk of parachute cords. I got it for Christmas in 1947. That was the first Christmas we received gifts. You don’t know how many nights I held onto this doll for fright. When there were thunderstorms with the noise and the lightning, it sounded like bombs to me. The wind, the shadows---everything frightened me. I had nightmares until I was eighteen years old. You relive the bombing; you cannot forget it. It’s not that you ponder it, but the memories come unbidden. The mental pictures and the fear stay with you. I'm 77 now, and I’ve kept this doll all these years, ever since I was a child in Berlin. When everything is taken away, you treasure what you have.” The table and cabinet Maria's grandfather made: Maria's doll: Maria Nichols was born in Germany in January of 1939. The bronze sculpture (below) that she brought to America from her homeland is part of the What I Kept exhibit on display March 14 - July 2, 2015 at the University of Memphis Art Museum. This exhibit features the keepsakes (and the stories behind them) of women who immigrated to Memphis from around the world. What I Kept is curated by Penny Dodds Karwacz and photographed by Jason Miller. For more information on the What I Kept exhibit at the University of Memphis, go to---
"It's important for our community to have a place like this to worship, to see each other, to learn our heritage, and to pass that culture on to the younger generation. I do some of everything around the temple: maintenance, planning, treasury, events like the one today, whatever needs to be done. I've always loved what John F. Kennedy said: 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.' That's why I volunteer. I always ask myself, 'What can I do for this community?'" Scenes from the Cambodian New Year Festival, 2015:
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