A great week for the Army of Good. I am happy about selling out the Bishop Maginn Teacher’s own Amazon Wish List– the things they said they most needed –  and am grateful to parents and teachers from all over the country who rushed to buy out the list in 24 hours.

I am urging the teachers to put another list up next week – they are afraid to ask for too much. A lot of teachers from all everywhere rushed to help their colleagues out.

I told the teachers to ask for what they need, and keep asking,  they will get what we can give. What a sweet sight that sold out wishlist is.

I told Principal Mike Tolan and Sue Silverstein, the art and theology teacher at the school,  that my goal is to give the teachers every single tool they need and want for the upcoming school year. I hope we can spare any Bishop Maginn teacher from having to buy their own supplies.

I believe we are very close to doing that. Teachers everywhere are working two or three jobs and buying school supplies out of their own pockets to help their students. We can start here.

Bishop Maginn has enough school and art supplies to last the year.  And supplies for kids who can’t buy their own. And a new computer and science lab and choir.

Perhaps we can begin a revolution to turn the teacher’s plight around. Our revolution is underway, and we don’t need an election, we need to keep our faith with one another.

In just a couple of days, we sold out two Wish Lists, built a secret garden,  sold yet another painting from Blue, the gifted artist in Sue Silverstein’s art class; gave teachers the tools and supplies they said they need. We thus plan on getting Bishop Maginn High School’s teachers everything they think they need for their classrooms which open in September.

In recent months, we have placed six gifted refugee children in excellent private schools on full scholarships.

In the three years that I have been doing this work, I’ve learned a lot.

As as always, I want to share these lessons with you. I think something important is happening, I think we are succeeding in a new and even radical way after some years of good and hard work, and many lessons learned.

Sometimes, we are so close to something we can’t really see it clearly enough.

I believe we’ve been on the cutting edge of new social and tech ideas to do good and fundraise in a very new, a comparatively inexpensive and effective way. I think we found ways to help people at a painful and challenging time, and we found places that would let us do it and be transparent about it.

We have offered people who want to do some good in their own way and at their own pace a chance to do so.

I believe there are forces at work that put me together with the Mansion Assisted Care Facility here in Cambridge and the Bishop Maginn High School In Albany. They opened their doors and hearts to me and my blog and my camera and the Army Of Good. They have no regrets.

The rest is history, or soon will be.

For more than two years, I beat on doors and pleaded with sometimes secretive, even paranoid bureaucrats to let me try to do this for them and with them.  I have felt a lot of rejection in my life, but this was among the most painful. I  just couldn’t breakthrough.  It’s the toughest experiences from which I learn the most, I felt I failed some of the children I was beginning to know and help.

Not any more. This is a different story.

I found my places. The Mansion let me in. Bishop Maginn let me in, and I will never forget either of them for it. We trust and love and support each other. And we work together. We believe in the same things, believe it or not.

I am proud of us, the people we call the Army Of Good. I feel we are figuring out how to be no-nonsense and effective. We’ve pioneered the use of the Wish Lists to bypass bureaucracies and institutions that are not transparent, are sometimes inefficient and secretive.

People want to make their own choices, control their own money.

We’ve used blogs,  transparency, writing, photography, social media, and animals in this war to do good. Everyone one of them was and is essential to the work. from Red to the young artists in Sue Silverstein’s class. They’ve all come together.

Along the way, we’ve encountered some formidable obstacles. This is not the age of trust. But I feel like we’ve broken through.

We are pinpointing our support and focus. We are learning how to help.

We use what money we have to fill the holes in people’s lives and to perpetuate small acts of great kindness that impact directly on the lives of the needy and vulnerable.

There are different elements to this work that I have found successful.

The first is writing, picture taking, blogging. The writing describes the people and the need; photography makes them visible, thus credible. I believe in channeling money for substantial things directly to the institution and people who need it the most.

The second is transparency: I meet and photograph every person we help, if they can’t or won’t agree, we find someone else.

I work in small increments, spending what I get quickly and openly. I don’t want money lying idle, I put it to work. I never have a lot of money but have always managed to scrounge up what we need. I get some substantial donations; I get a lot of small ones.  They all mean a lot to me.

The third major factor is social media and technology; we use them all to allow people to contribute directly to those they wish to help in ways they want to help. No middle-men, no bureaucracies.

We funnel money into people, the elderly, the refugee children, their teachers. We know who we are helping, there are few, if any, middlemen or bureaucrats between the people we support and us.

We stay small and focused. Small acts of great kindness, not big ones. We aren’t going national, signing up for non-profit status,  finding a board of directors, buying expensive stationery, giving lessons on doing good:

We think small, act big. We share a commitment to good.  There is no point in throwing cash at problems that are beyond us; many issues are well within our scope:

Air conditioners, blankets, sweaters, socks, mouthwash, and denture paste, bras, and panties,  books and comics, sneakers and T-shirts, warm shoes in winter, loose clothes in summer, brushes, and pencils.

These are the threads of life, the holes in the lives of the needy and the vulnerable, the things they need but cannot get by themselves. We have a network of thrift shops eager to rush in and help when someone arrives with no clothes.

We don’t transform lives of work miracles; we support needy and vulnerable people in any way we can. I believe we also share a strong moral value: it is a matter of faith, country and patriotism to help those who cannot help themselves, and keep the American Dream alive for the battered and desperate refugees who come to us as the last hope.

I believe in using photography and openness to bring people who want to help in direct contact with people who need help. I use my writing to explain who we are helping and why. Nobody needs to take my word for anything; they see every person we support and everything we do or buy.

It’s all of a piece. I can hold some of the glue together, none of it works without you.

I appreciate the concern that Amazon has gotten too big. The company is said to treat many of its employees poorly. Sadly, morality is relative. These people need help right now, every day. When I need something I can’t find locally, it is always there on Amazon, and it always comes the next day and in good condition.

If there were giant corporations that could do for us what Amazon does, I would be happy to work with them. I don’t know of a genuinely moral and human giant corporation; their CEO’s make money for their stockholders, period, that is their morality and obligation.

The Amazon Wish Lists are the most valuable and effective means I have ever encountered for helping the Mansion residents and the refugee children and their families. They are simple to use, and people love the ease and speed of using them. We have helped so many people through these lists.

There is absolutely no way I could purchase these things, ship and transport them by myself. Your Wish List purchases go directly to the school, not to me.

The lists buy the supplies and technology and products people need,  from underwear to T-shirts. I raise a smaller amount for the personal effects of people – clothes, personal effects, books, toilet paper, mouthwash, jackets and shoes and blankets in the winter. Those are not things we can put on wish lists, but they are also important.

Those are primarily the two tiers on which we function now, the wishlists and donations to the Mansion/Refugee Fund. All contributions go to a separate bank account monitored by a bookkeeper and a New York City certified accountant.

Because of us, forgotten older people on the edge of life have the clothes they need, the air conditioners they want, books and music and movies to listen to.

Because of us a high school full or poor and needy and refugee kids on the rebound, teaching art and music and science (and basketball) once more.

This school needs to thrive and survive; it follows the true spirit of faith: helping others. Oh yes, if you wish to contribute directly to the school’s tax-deductible tuition fund, you can do so by sending your donation to Mike Tolan, Principal, Bishop Maginn High School, 75 Park Avenue, Albany, N.Y., 12201.

My job is to find worthy people in need and introduce them to people who live far away and can’t meet them, but who wish to help.  I document these needs in people in every possible way through my words, interviews, and photos.

Our work with the Bishop Maginn High School is by far the crowning achievement of my work, your work and the Army Of Good. It is a different place than the one I first saw two months ago.

We have done more quickly and effectively in a shorter time than I have achieved in months or years of practice. I thank you for joining me in this wonderful enterprise.

In recent years, I realize we are often swimming upstream, against the tide and mood of much of the country. Our government has walked away from the idea that it should help the poor; they prefer to blame the poor for being poor. So do many citizens. I found non-profits difficult to deal with.

We feel differently from the people shouting on cable news channels.

We have found a new kind of community – people who live to do good rather than argue about right and wrong. People who share a view of faith that was, until recently, a common American value system.

Practical good in the real world, every day.

We haven’t given up on this idea of compassion and empathy as a political value, we are refining and sharpening it and demonstrating that we can all be a force for good and change.

My faith, my hope says this ethic will win out over hate and evil. I thank you for joining me.