With a community grant from the town of Woodstock, Vermont we designed, built and ran the Optimist Center for three years, from 2017 until 2020. It was designed for entrepreneurs, workshops and community programs and included spaces for coworking, a retreat space and a studio. We helped the town of Woodstock created their Vision for 2020 from the space and closed the center during the pandemic.

Why DID I Do This?

I always dreamed of having my own cafe or bookstore: an inspiring third place like Ben Franklin's Junto where great people meet, collaborate and make amazing things happen. I was approached by the Town of Woodstock to create something just like this and we had the chance to build it right next store to a local cafe!

 My wife Tunga and I also dreamed of building another community center in Mongolia as a women's empowerment and learning center. We were able to ultimately do this through our work with the Hatan Foundation.

Inspirations

Here are some of the organizations who inspired me on this journey

I'm proud to share with you my masters thesis, Leading Happiness. I completed this thesis for my Masters Degree at SIT Graduate Institute. In Leading Happiness I researched shared leadership and happiness at work in two amazing Certified B Corporations.

You can download Leading Happiness for free as an eBook.

It's also available as a paperback on Amazon.com.

If you would like to see my thesis presentation click here.

Good Father Project

In my last year of Peace Corps service I spoke with one of my community friends and we talked about the importance of fathers in the lives of their children. We decided to create a project to recognize good fathers, inspire the community and create good father clubs to help support fathers moving forward. Here are our original project website and Facebook group.

A Little History

For thousands of years Mongolian men have ridden horses, lived in remote gers in the countryside, and looked after their families and herds of animals. As Mongolia has developed, with particularly rapid growth in the last two decades, the role of the man has been evolving as well. Unfortunately, it is leaving many men lost in a free market economy where they are unemployed and wondering about their next step. How do we encourage men during difficult times, especially if they are unemployed? One answer we arrived at as a community is to recognize the unsung heroes – the amazing men who are good fathers, regardless of income or professional status.

What is the Good Father Project?

We created the Good Father Project, or Sain Aav Tosol in Mongolian, to acknowledge the wonderful fathers in our small community in the eastern steppe of Mongolia. The Good Father Project is founded on the idea that by recognizing these men we can honor, support and empower them as they raise their children and support their families. Now, we would like to spread the Good Father Project across Mongolia to increase the recognition of wonderful fathers in our country.

Our simple idea became a very popular concept in our community. We conducted several contests aimed at honoring fathers and we worked with local community members to develop relevant curriculum to provide support and fun for fathers.

How does the Good Father Project work?

Essay Competition

Our community team believed that the best people to nominate Good Fathers are their children. So we worked with the local schools in our province to host an essay competition led by the Department of Education. We advertised our competition with free local television airtime, advertisements in the town square, and with the help of teachers who explained the contest to each classroom in their schools. Then, we waited as the essays poured in.

Each essay began with “My father is a good father because…” and our young writers did the rest. They explained the sacrifices and challenges that their fathers face daily, spoke to their character and integrity, and much more. In our first year we received over 230 essays coming in from all over the province, written by students from first grade all the way to college, often including drawings, poems, and even photographs of their fathers. One photo in particular had a note attached that read, “Please return this photo to me, it’s the only photo I have of my father and it’s very special.”

In the second year, we again asked students to write about their fathers. Over 250 students responded, telling us about "My Loving Father." Our selection committee of male community leaders selected 10 outstanding essays from all of the submissions. We honored the 10 children and their fathers during that year’s Children's Day Festivities on June 1st.

PHOTO COMPETITION

In our second year, we ran a photo competition at the same time as our essay competition. We asked everyone, children or adults, to send us their photos of their fathers. We received nearly 50 photographs of men working, playing, and just being dads. One of our selected winners submitted photos of her recently deceased father, taking advantage of the opportunity to honor him for the life he had led. All photo submissions were displayed in the large electronic billboard in the square during the weekend of Children's Day. Many were also used through GFP to continue promoting fatherhood.

AWARD CEREMONIES

The Good Father Project collaborates with the local Department of Education and Children's Day to honor fathers during the province’s International Children’s Day Celebration on June 1st. Each year, 10 Good Father Award Winners and their children received awards and recognition in front of the entire community. Good Fathers recognized included the mayor of a local village, a herdsman who traveled hours into town to receive his award, a police chief, local business owners, stay-at-home dads, and a local writer from a distant village. The men were visibly proud to receive their awards as they hugged their children and families when they were invited onstage to join them. If you'd like to see all the fun pictures from these events, you can visit our facebook page here.

For Long Term Impact: The Good Father Clubs

The ultimate vision for the project was for Mongolian men to gather in small community based groups to spend time together and discuss issues that are important to them, their families and to the community. Good Father award winners were asked to start clubs that would meet together monthly and use modules designed by local professionals and Peace Corps Volunteers to discuss in their groups, including:

• Health & Nutrition

• Alcohol Awareness

• Tobacco Awareness

• Domestic Violence Prevention

• Human Trafficking 

Each of these modules consisted of multiple sessions, including some designed for participants to bring family members to, such as group family bonding activities like a movie or game night.  Others were exclusively for the men. The final session of each module was designed to provide a space for reflection on the material covered in the module or could be used to draft an action plan for how men can share the information they learned with the rest of the community. The men also received individual certificates of recognition for each completed module.

The project was a huge success thanks to many community partners and Peace Corps Volunteers over many years. It inspired other projects in Iraq, the United States and other communities across Mongolia. The simplicity of the model and the community member-focused approach makes it easy to replicate and one of those projects I continue to reflect on more fondly on each year.

 Everyday Service Conference

Service means something different to everyone. At Everyday Service, we believe that service comes in all forms from big commitments to small acts of kindness you do all of the time, but don't even notice. We want to shine light on all of these actions and inspire people to keep doing the wonderful things that they do for others. By doing so, we really can change the world.


Our Goals
1) Create creative projects that enable people to engage with one another through the common idea of service.
2) Build a community of world changers and Everyday Humanitarians.
3) Share stories and resources that help people learn how they can change the world.

If you download the Everyday Service Course, these are some of the fantastic professors that you will be able to hear from. It is a truly diverse group with an amazing collective experience from all corners of the service world! You'll also notice many of our professors work with our community partners!

Professors

Jen Wilson...  Featured | Website
Jen is a counselor, life coach and educational consultant. She has worked to start several charter schools, led outdoor retreats and workshops and helped people live wonderful awesome lives. She is founder of New Leaf Coaching and Consulting.

Tim Hwang...  Website | Facebook
Tim is founder of Awesome Foundation, an incredible group of people around the world who are spreading awesomeness one $1000 grant at a time. There are over 30 chapters around the world and Awesome Foundation will soon be featured on the SyFy later this year.

David Hlebain
David is the Community Partnerships Coordinator at the Carlson Leadership & Public Service Center at the University of Washington. David previously served at the Carlson Center as an  AmeriCorps  VISTA member and worked at the Lifelong AIDS Alliance.

Joanne Schwartz
Joanne has committed her life to serving the small communities in Lewis County, Washington through her career and volunteer experiences. She worked as the county commissioner and the director of community services in Chehalis. Further, she was a founding member of the Lewis County Economic Development Council, is a current trustee at Centralia College and is a board member at Providence Hospital and the Chehalis Foundation, which she helped create.

Danielle Sleeper
Danielle who is Research Assistant and Contributor to new book The Effective Global Volunteer, which is second edition of How to Live Your Dream Volunteering Overseas.

Chris De Bruyen
Chris served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia from 2007 to 2009. He currently works as a and Instructor with the American University of Iraq. He is also co-founder of Development Now.

Judy Gates
Judy served as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 2008 to 2010 and again as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer from 2011 to 2012 working with Community Economic Development. 

Kareen Kanjo
Kareen is currently working as a Programs Coordinator with the Building Skills Partnership (BSP), a non-profit organization that provides courses and programs for low-wage immigrant workers throughout California. Kareen completed two years of  AmeriCorps VISTA with BSP before being hired directly by the organization. Prior to joining Americorps, Kareen was a member of the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, a national service program rooted in “building community, working for justice, and living simply and sustainably”. Through LVC, Kareen completed a year-long term of service with La Raza Central Legal in San Francisco, CA. 

Joshua Dawson... Featured | Website | Facebook
Joshua is founder of the I Am Genie Foundation, a wish granting organization focused on inspiring people to do good deeds. It has been featured on major networks including ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX and so far given over $1,000,000 inspiring people worldwide.

Marianne Perez... Featured | Website | Facebook
Marianne is founder of Peace is Sexy, a website dedicated to showing the inviting, seductive and spicy side of peace by profiling people and organizations that create peace in the world.

Maren Peterson...  Website | Featured | Facebook
Maren serves as Senior Project Coordinator for United Planet, an organization which brings together thousands of people all over the world in the effort to build cross-cultural understanding and provide vital services to communities in need.

Zach Maurin
Zach runs ServeNext (now part of ServiceNation) -- a grassroots advocacy organization for national service/AmeriCorps. We are working to build a permanent, powerful, and constantly growing army of advocates who are relentlessly pushing national service in our politics.  He is an AmeriCorps/City Year alum, originally from Pittsburgh, and now living in DC.   

Vanessa Porter...  Email | Chat
Vanessa served in Honduras from 2008 to 2010 as a Protected Areas Management Volunteer in a rural village where she taught Environmental Education in schools, wrote course books, organized a Girls' Health Group, led a "Religious Equality Forum" support group and served during a coup d' etat. Vanessa currently works with Boston Natural Areas Network as an Environmental Educational teacher. 

Orly Wahba... Featured | Website
Orly is founder and CEO of Life Vest Inside, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to keeping the world afloat with kindness. Her films have been enjoyed by tens of millions of people and her organization's approach to kindness has inspired even more.

Travis Hellstrom...  Website | Email | LinkedIn
Travis just finished three years of service as a PCV & PCVL in Mongolia where he worked as a Health Specialist. He founded Peace Corps 101, wrote the Unofficial Handbook & Enough, and co-founded TEDxUlaanbaatar, the first TEDx event in Mongolia.

Jen Chantrill
Jen is a juicy free spirit, experiential educator, community change agent and passionate yogini. Currently, she is a Volunteer Coordinator & Operations Manager for  Washington C.A.S.H.,  (Community Alliance for Self-Help), empowering aspiring entrepreneurs in the Puget Sound area. Jen also runs her own small business; Living Bliss Consulting, a solo project that provides personalized business coaching and consulting for women business owners in the healing arts. 

Nancy Creighton
Nancy is the Children's Outreach Liaison at Westbrook Health Services, a non-profit community behavioral health care provider in Parkersburg, West Virginia. She serves as chair of the Wood County Wellness Coalition, is a member of the Wood County Youth & Adolescent Council, and serves on the board of both the Ritchie County and Tyler County Family Resource Networks. Nancy served in AmeriCorps NCCC as a Corps Member in 2002 and as a Team Leader in 2009.

Amy Potthast
Amy is the director and founder of the St. Johns Village Project, a small-scale, socially innovative approach to decreasing teen parent isolation and improving outcomes for their children. Amy oversaw Idealist’s Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good; created content for, edited, and promoted the Idealist Nonprofit Career Center and Grad School Resource Center; wrote about careers, volunteering and service for the Idealist homepage blog; trained service corps members and program staff; and created several blogs and podcast shows including the Grad School show, the Careers show, The Civic Life show, the Nonprofit Career Month series & blog, and The New Service podcast & blog.

Matt Johnson...  Website | Featured | Facebook
Matt is a social entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Project Living Well, a startup dedicated to outfitting, inspiring and supporting Everyday World Changers.

Averill Strasser...  Website | Featured | LinkedIn
Averill is Founder and COO of Water Charity, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, which operates worldwide to provide safe water, sanitation, and health education to those in need.

Thomas Burns
Thomas was a Fulbright Scholar in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia from 2009 to 2010. He is also author of the Unofficial Guide to Fulbright Scholarships and will be sharing his perspective on the incredible Fulbright Program.

Joe Salvatore...  Website | Interview
Joe is one of the founding staff at Madécasse, an amazing company in Madagascar started by former Peace Corps Volunteers which was recently named by Fast Company as one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

Matt Wojciakowski
Matt is the Community Engagement Coordinator at  the Carlson Leadership & Public Service Center at the University of Washington. Matt works closely with students to support them through different service opportunities in Greater Seattle. 

Libby Hite
Libby works in New Hampshire as State Program Specialist for the Corporation of National & Community Service. Libby was also a staff member for the Southwest Region of AmeriCorps NCCC after serving as a Team Leader for the organization.

Alec Macauley
Alec spent two years with Teach for America after serving as International President of Circle K. He will be sharing advice with us about incredible service opportunities around the country. 

EVERYDAY SERVICE COMMUNITY PARTNERS

At Everyday Service, we know that there are incredible organizations around the globe that are doing their part to make the world just a little better. We want to honor and feature these organizations by sharing them with you! These are just a few of our favorites!

His Holiness the Dalai Lama was our first Everyday Inspiration here at Advance Humanity and he is my go-to guy when I think of how I want to be in my everyday life. He's the background on my computer, iPod and just about everything I've got, and his example is constantly in my mind. I have always greatly admired him, his quiet and calm leadership style and, maybe most of all, his words.

Since I was in high school over 10 years ago, I've been reading his quotes and writing down my favorites. I must have read thousands over the years and dozens of his books, but always kept my list of favorite quotes down to a few hundred. These particular quotes have been tremendously helpful to me throughout my life and, thanks to technology, it's easy to share them with people all around the world.

The Social Network

When Facebook came onto the scene not too long ago, my friend Pawan decided to take my favorite quotes and turn them into a Facebook application. It quickly grew to thousands of fans and was a lot of fun to do. When Facebook launched pages we created a Quotes from the Dalai Lama page and a Twitter account where we share one quote everyday using Timely.is to upload a batch of quotes all at once.

iEverything

Just as iPod revolutionized the way people looked at Apple, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads have revolutionized the way that people interact with fun applications or apps. They have made everything from games to information fun, bite-sized and easy to store in your pocket. It's like something out of Star Trek!

I always dreamed of having an iPhone app for the Dalai Lama's quotes, but knew I couldn't do it myself. So I asked around. Back in 2010, James at Software X was kind enough to create a simple app for us for free. It was very popular and a lot of fun to do but it only scratched the surface of what was possible.

Eagle Scout Service Award

The Eagle Scout award is the highest award achievable by a Boy Scout in America. To earn an Eagle Scout award, a Scout has to spend years in his Troop camping and serving others, developing as a strong leader, completing over 20 merit badges, leading a successful Eagle Scout Service Project and passing his Eagle Scout Board of Review.

Becoming an Eagle Scout is a long road, but as many Scouts look back it is often one of the single greatest experiences of their lives. It certainly was for me.

My Eagle Scout Service Project was the creation of an outdoor classroom at my high school, Fred T. Foard. It cost over $3,000 and required over 800 hours of community service from both me and my friends, family and fellow Scouts. The entire cost of the project was covered by donations from local organizations and businesses and taught me that people are always willing to help you out when you have a great idea and the energy to make it a reality. You can read a bit more in the article below.

About Scouting

Boy Scouts of America is the largest youth organization in the United States with over 5 million members. It is also part of the International Scouting Movement which currently has over 28 million members worldwide. It's estimated that since its founding in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has had over 110 million members.

I started Scouting when I was 15, after moving from Florida to North Carolina. My friend and Eagle Scout Bryan Mack recommended I visit his Troop, where his dad Roy was Scoutmaster, and I loved it. Two and a half years later, on my 18th birthday, I finished building my Eagle Scout service project, an outdoor classroom at my high school. On May 15th, 2003 I graduated from high school in the morning and received my Eagle Scout award that evening. Roy, Bryan, and my Assistant Scoutmasters Luther and Roger, presented me with my award in front of my family, my friends, my fellow Scouts, my teachers and my principals from school. I felt then, and still feel now, a great appreciation for all of these people and their guidance and support over the years.

Since graduating from high school, I have met many other Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts (including my freshman year roommate in college) and been continually impressed by their character and values. I think Scouting provides young men in America with a wonderful opportunity to grow into caring, engaged and responsible adults who understand their place in the world around them. I look forward to being involved with the organization for many years and am thankful for what I have already learned from my Scout leaders and friends.

local Newspaper Article