“Amanda reminded me today where we came from. After my father died, I felt what I had to do was simple: see a need, make a promise, keep the promise. Repeat. My dad tried to teach his sons the meaning of accountability. You can’t just point the finger and wait for someone else to act. Drive through the night if you have to. I remember waiting for the nonprofit’s approval paperwork and thinking to myself “I don’t need permission to help someone.” I packed my van with disaster relief supplies for the victims of Hurricane Sandy and I drove to New York City. Right now, I feel the same way. I am not going to just sit around and tell myself COVID-19 is someone else’s problem.
Because I said I would is shifting the focus of our charitable programming to support people directly and indirectly affected by the coronavirus. If we really claim to be a social movement “dedicated to the betterment of humanity” then I guess the phone is ringing pretty loudly right now. Today, I informed the staff of because I said I would that all of our resources need to be reengineered to support COVID-19 recovery. Our chapter members in schools, our chapter members in prisons, our volunteer projects, our financial resources, our public education campaigns and the energy from supporters like you…all hands on deck. COVID-19 is the humanitarian crisis of a generation. This virus threatens to end the lives of our love ones, devastate our families and take our livelihoods. It expects us to just break down and fall into civil unrest. Well, it has another thing coming. Human beings have conquered diseases far worse than COVID-19 and we are about to do it again.
In the days, weeks and months ahead, we will make promises to fight COVID-19 in a variety of ways and we will challenge you to do the same. We are hundreds of thousands of people who share a common belief in the importance of a promise. If that is worth anything, then we are about to do some incredible things.”
–Alex Sheen, Founder of Because I said I would.
Stay tuned…
