Ten Thousand Rivers

A new river runs!

On September 1, 2009 The Elephant Walk in Waltham became a river - at least as I envision it!

Now a Benefit Restaurant™, The Waltham Elephant Walk is donating 4% of its sales to charity on a continuous, permanent basis. As such, the restaurant is a source of sustainable giving, a continuous flow funds directed by carefully purposed and well managed non-profits into the ocean of societal needs inundating us all.

I am responsible for writing for three blogs - this one, benefitrestaurants, and elephantwalktalk. As my erratic history shows, I've failed to post on anything resembling a regular basis. I am hoping that my recent meeting with myself on this matter will improve my performance in this regard. At that meeting I settled on clearer purposes for each of the three blogs, which I expect will help the words flow:

• tenthousandrivers will explore the ocean of need as I perceive it: social problems challenging us.

• benefitrestaurants will study and explain how restaurants can be - and now at least one is! - rivers filling that ocean, providing a reliable flow of funds to help meet our social challenges.

• elephantwalktalk will continue to focus on my "day job," the company and people I've worked with and loved since 1991.

Hunger Relief is the focus of The Elephant Walk's first three months as a Benefit Restaurant™. September 2009 the commitment is to the Bristol Lodge Kitchen, a soup kitchen in Waltham, Massachusetts; October's beneficiary will be Project Bread.

Benefit Restaurants: each one a river

The river image is so powerful, symbolizing continuity, rising and falling, carrying life, containing life, bringing and sustaining life. Each river has its original source, is fed in a multitude of ways along its winding path, and flows continuously until finally feeding its lake or ocean.

In my first post I mentioned that I'd finally figured out how I can better help fill the needs surrounding me: I will be helping through Benefit Restaurants. On September 1, 2009 The Elephant Walk, a restaurant in Waltham, Massachusetts in which I am a partner, will become a river. As America's first Benefit Restaurant™, the Waltham Elephant Walk will be directing a continuous flow of funds to charities and non-profits, working to do its part to help fill the ocean of need awaiting us all.

I am seriously excited! And I'm also extremely grateful to my business partners for supporting me in this new endeavor by committing their shares of the business to the common good in this manner. Through Benefit Restaurants there is now a way to harness the rivers they represent and to direct their flow into that ocean of need!

An ocean of need awaits us all

Greg Mortenson's electrifying story told in his [and David Oliver Relin's] 2006 book Three Cups of Tea illustrates how he chose to help fill the "ocean of need" he discovered in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At The Elephant Walk restaurants we receive five to ten requests a day for for cash donations, for in-kind donations to help feed reception guests, and for gift cards to be used as auction and raffle prizes to benefit a dizzying array of worthy causes - so many requests that we can't keep up! And when we return home from work each night my wife and I find more requests in our mailbox [not to mention our email inboxes...].

Everywhere I look - and in almost everything I read, listen to on the radio, watch on TV, or surf over on the internet - I discover new, compelling and genuine needs for volunteers and financial support. And I know this is true for just about everyone, and everywhere.

No ocean is filled by a single river, or even a few. None of us - not even Bill Gates - can even hope to fill an ocean alone. No,it takes ten thousand rivers to fill an ocean of need.

For me, that truth is finally sinking in. I think that, in order for us and our descendants to live the happy, healthy lives that most of us dream of, each of us must do what we can to help one another, animals, our land, seas, and sky.

I think I have finally figured out how I can help my river grow a little bigger, and flow a little faster toward that ocean of need that awaits us all. I'll share some details in my next post.