Boys Town is Changing Children’s Lives.

The Boys Town organization is an amazing organization. They help so many troubled children to turn their lives around. I’m looking forward to talking to the kids again in the near future, but would love for you to check them out and consider supporting.

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The Boys Town organization provides short-term emergency residential care for assessment and crisis stabilization for abused, neglected, runaway youth or youth who have been in trouble due to delinquent activities.

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Check them out: http://www.boystown.org/

Speaking at the United Nations!

Capitol Hill last week and now the United Nations…(I’m so focused on the end goal sometimes I forget to appreciate the daily stuff, but this was truly amazing!)

I had the amazing privilege of being on a panel at the 6th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations for a session titled “BE THE CHANGE Making a Difference Around the World.”

Around 700 20-somethings from around the world were in the audience.  They are all participating in a three day conference, aimed at bringing together youth who are already making big differences in their various countries to network and build their skills.

Truly inspiring group of young people!   

When you meet so many socially minded and “goal driven for good” people  it’s impossible to not walk out the door and feel like you can take on anything!

I spoke about my experiences and what it takes to reach your goals and also talked a lot about Teach For America and it’s founder Wendy Kopp.  She is truly the best example of what can be accomplished with a powerful goal and the right mindsets and she started the program at the same age as most of them in the room.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to see Jessica from Boys Town New York! (pictured above)  Jessica was one of the students I met earlier in the year when I spoke at their school in Brooklyn.  

It’s amazing to see her continuing to turn her life around and to see that’s she’s now looking to help others!  (GO JESSICA!)

Special thanks to my teammate Jason Rogers for setting up this opportunity for me.  Really appreciate it J-Rog!

Boys Town Goes Fencing!

Sunday evening we got the chance to teach a great bunch of kids to fence from the Boys Town New York organization!   It’s always fun to show new people our sport and especially fun with people who might not normally get exposed to it.

The Boys Town organization provides short-term emergency residential care for assessment and crisis stabilization for abused, neglected, runaway youth or youth who have been in trouble due to delinquent activities. 

Priscilla, Juanique, Maureen, Jessica, Irvin, Cedric, Donell, Okpala and Anthony are really inspirations and with the help of Boys Town they are turning around their lives.  It was honor to get to meet and work with them!
The clinic was purchsed by Dave Shaffer at the Boys Town Building Hope Gala for $10,000 dollars and gifted by him to the students of Boys Town.    A very special thank you to him for supporting Boys Town!

 

To learn more or support Boys Town: www.boystownnewyork.org

Fortnight in Review: Jason Rogers and Tim Morehouse’s Live, Broadcast and Online Adventures with Boys Town New York, Fox Business and Contributing Editor

Posted by Jason Rogers

It was a busy “fortnight” indeed (definition: two weeks), and in many ways it feels like Tim and I have been around the world and back with the eclectic nature of our activities. Let’s just put it this way: if you collected all the people that we collaborated with in the last couple weeks in a bar, you would have yourself quite an interesting (perhaps even disastrous) cocktail hour.

To kick it all off we headed down to Capitale for the annual Boys Town Building Hope Gala. In addition to enjoying the wry humor of Master of Ceremonies Len Berman, the inspiring words of Boys Town success stories Maureen and Ricardo, and the sultry voices of singers Chrisette Michele and Karina Pasian, we had the great pleasure of kicking off the live auction with sale the of our 2 fencing clinics for an eye popping 20,000 dollars! The Olympians were in full force bringing in a total of 30,000 dollars with the additional sale of Michael Phelps swim clinic for 10,000 dollars.

Grammy-nominated performer Chrisette Michele; Photo Chris London

The next stop on our itinerary included the Waldorf-Astoria’s Bull and Bear bar and a shift from live to broadcast with our appearance on Fox Business News’ show, “Happy Hour.” We did a little verbal fencing with hosts Cody Willard and Rebecca Diamond, and topics of discussion included projected budget cuts for London’s 2012 Olympic Games, the Olympic Spirit, and fencing’s comeback in the world of popular sports.

With Fox Business' Happy Hour anchors Cody Willard and Rebecca Diamond

View Clip from Happy Hour

Last but certainly not least was our foray into fashion with our photo-article appearing in online fashion blog Contributing Editor. Never has fencing been portrayed with such an interesting combination of sexiness and gravitas, but we can take no credit for that masterpiece. We placed ourselves in the capable hands of photographer Jeffery Graetsch and Contributing Editor founder Matthew Edelstein and the result was indeed quite magical.

The Cover of Photo-Article

View Entire Article

Olympians Morehouse and Rogers Mentioned in Black Tie Magazine (Page 6 Next?)

The NY Post has been running a bunch of stories on Page 6 about recent celebrities being auctioned off  for Charities including tennis legend John McEnroe and figure skater Oksana Baiul.

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Tennis lessons with John McEnroe sold for $10,000 dollars, a date with figure staker Oksana Baiul sold for $2500 dollars…makes me even more amazed that our clinic sold for $20,000 at the Boys Town New York gala!!!!

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Maybe Page 6 will be in our future? That might be a first for a fencer! For now, we got a nice mention in Black Tie magazine.

Olympic silver medalists Tim Morehouse and Jason Rogers from the U.S. Fencing team with Grammy-nominated performer Chrisette Michele at the Boys Town New York Building Hope Gala where much needed funds were raised in support of the organization’s interventional programs for at-risk girls and boys. Photo by:  Chris London

Morehouse and Rogers Sell for $20,000 at the Boys Town Gala!

 

Boystown children Maureen and Ricardo (wearing the Silver Medals) along with the generous donors and supporters of Boys Town Kathy Guarino and Dave Schaefer

As part of therfundraising efforts for the charity Boys Town, Jason and I offered a package where we would teach kids to fence as one of five items for people to bid on in a live auction at their annual gala. Our item had the lowest starting bid on paper at $500 dollars and we were a bit worried about how we would sell up against the other things. (Swimming in the pool with Michael Phelps was one of them!)

 

 

For the auction, they brought us up on stage and I felt so nervous staring out at the crowd as the bidding began.   Someone yelled out “$1000” and then I breathed a sigh of relief that we were at least going to sell! Then something I didn’t expect happened, the price kept rising!  People shouted out, “$2500″ then “$5000″ up and up it went!

 

The final bid went to Kathy Guarino for $10,000 dollars!  Even more amazing is that her enthusiasm inspired another gala goer, Dave Schaefer, to match her gift!  Our package ended up bringing in $20,000 dollars! (Michael Phelps brought in only $10,000!  We doubled Phelps!) 

MC and WNBC Sports Anchor and NYC Legend Len Berman

We couldn’t have been happier to help out such an amazing organization and Mrs. Guarino and Mr. Schaefer have our full respect for putting up so much money despite the economy. So many children are going to be helped as a result of their donations.    

 

The organization, founded by Father Flanagan in 1917 to help some of our country’s most disadvantaged children.  More than 90 years later the organization helps more than 50,000 abused, abandoned and neglected boys and girls a year.  Two of the children, Maureen and Ricardo, took the stage and shared their inspirational stories.  Both faced struggles including serving time in jail, being abused and dropping out of school.  With the help of Boys Town, they are now back on track and also becoming role models for their fellow children in the Boys Town family.

 

I always try to think about myself facing those circumstances and wonder if I would have made it out or been able to achieve what I have without the support I had in my life?   It’s one of those thoughts that puts life in perspective because I don’t know if I would have won an Olympic medal or had as much success as I’ve had facing the odds that they faced.  By the time they were done speaking, I was in tears.  Needless to say, the kids were truly the heroes of the night! 

Also in attendance were singers Chrisette Michele, Dawn Richard and Karina Pasian.