Weekly Recap #10: "Water"
Man, after 10 weeks of being pretty consistent about getting my weekly blog post up, I caved. #DadLife caught up to me, & I just couldn't seem to finish this post. I did start it Sunday night, as I have with the others, but I was just unable to find a solid writing groove. A few things definitely contributed to this... the fact that I'm not an English major who actually went to school for this, so I'm always re-reading, over analyzing & questioning my posts. The fact that it's still the beginning of the school year for my wife, which means more daddy-duty for me & a lack of time for writing. And lastly, Hurricane Harvey & its affects on the community of Houston have been heavy on my heart & I haven't been able to properly gather my thoughts about the whole situation.
(Check this link from Buzzfeed for more flood photos)
It seemed like there was an unexpected theme of water in my life last week. From the fact that it's It's so crazy hot in Southern California right now (I'm talking in the 100s 😓) & feeling like we're needing to stay hydrated, to the floods caused by Hurricane Harvey, and to an email I received from my buddy, Jake, the owner & operator of the Love Water organization.
The next photo I'm posting is of Jake. I met Jake over a decade ago when he & I & about 5 other buddies were all running small clothing companies. We would see each other at trade shows & music festivals every year & there was this sort of "usual suspects" family feel that was built between us vendors. It was funny, because if you think about it, we were all kind of in competition with each other, going after the same demographic, but there was this bond over being fellow creatives & a mutual respect for each other's hustle.
I always appreciated Jake in particular because he was a fire fighter, aka an everyday hero, & you could just tell that he loved having his clothing company as a creative outlet. Jake was also one of the first guys in that group of vendors to have a kid, & I know I always found it impressive that he could juggle all of these completely unrelated aspects of his life at the same time. Fast forward a few years and Jake starts to feel a calling on his heart to provide water to less fortunate families, essentially making him Aquaman in my eyes, saving people from burning buildings with water as a day job, & building filters & wells to provide clean water for families in his spare time.
Not to toot my own horn, especially because Jake is doing the hard work, but I've found it pretty easy to donate to Jake's Love Water organization the past few years, because he is able to do so much, with so little funding. He has sent me photos of biosand filters with my name on them as a donor in the past, but this past week he sent out photos with the filters and the families they were donated to. These pictures tugged on my heart strings because it was even more personal. You could see the money you donated making a difference in people's lives, and all because Jake listened to this call on his life & decided to do something about it.
This weeks post isn't so much about what it takes to be a creative, but what you can do with your creativity in order to help others. If it's a simple as taking a portion of the money you make with your art and donating it to victims from Hurricane Harvey in Houston, donating money for people to have water to drink through companies like Love Water, or if it's using your creativity to come up with a way to help others... whatever the cause I challenge you to live your life unselfishly & use your talents to make positive change in this world. #DoSomething 🤙🏼
