I only know Edwin Schiele from our town’s small farmer’s market. I enjoy talking to him, we talk about movies and the news. Even though I love the things he sells – his strawberries and peas and vegetables are amazing – I know nothing about growing these things, he lives the very hard life of the young organic farmer, but his love for farming is infectious.

As you know, I have three passions now, apart from the obvious – getting poor refugee children into good schools, helping the residents of the Mansion live easier lives, and taking photographs of the good and honorable people in my life who work so hard and would otherwise never get any attention at all.

It is amazing how many good people one can find if you look for them. Edwin is fun to talk to, about movies or vegetables or fruit. I even got him to smile.

I love doing all three of these things. Edwin is one of those people who doesn’t just talk about making the world a better place, he is living it. His farm stand is beautiful rows of fresh vegetables, strawberries, and next week, blueberries.

He owns and operates a farm called Long Days Farm, which specializes in vegetables, fruit, garlic and eggs. He has an artist’s flair for display. Life on the farm is never an easy life, you have to love what you do.

Listening to him talk about his farm is draining, it is such hard and unpredictable work. I learned today that I can talk a little baseball with him he is a Philadelphia Phillies fan, and in another life, I had season tickets to the Phillies. There is no easier way to bond with most men than to talk a a bit of sports. I can fake it, I know just enough to get the conversation flowing.

There are so many good people in the world, doing good things, putting good energy out into the world. It’s a shame we don’t see and hear more from them. The faces of these people – Robin, Kelly,Edwin – tell their own stories as well or better than I can tell them.

I’m happy to add Edwin to my portrait list of worthy people who work hard and do good things.

(Tomorrow, I’m going to Albany to give Noorul, the young man from Afghanistan a laptop computer from Kathleen, an angel in our army.  I’m also meeting with two young women from Thailand who have led very difficult lives, mostly in refugee camps. Their names are Dah and Ma, and they are desperate to go to Bishop Maginn High School. The school is eager to have them, the problem is their parents have no money, and one of the fathers says he won’t pay a dime for private school. I’ve started negotiations with Mike Tolan of Bishop Maginn and I think we may be able to help. I’ll have to raise $3,000 each for these girls, that’s the floor for tuition but  the school might be flexible about payments. Mike really wants to make this work.  We’ll see.)