Flavia and the Lost Boys (and Girls)

Flavia Colgan launched a new web venture this week, Citizen Hunter. She describes it this way:

What is Citizen Hunter?

We think we have to write like Shakespeare, speak like Martin Luther King Jr., and have the courage of a lion to stand up for things that are right. We have been told for so long that one voice, especially one of "just a citizen", cannot resonate like powerful and special interests can. But that isn't so. We have the power to change our communities, our nation, and our world for the better. Each and every voice is important and we all must stand up and be counted, and we all must stand together. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts, and together we can accomplish more than we realize.

I think this is a fine thing. We could use a few more positive forces and voices out there.

You may remember that, at the instigation of politicspa, Colgan auctioned off a dinner in NYC at the Pennsylvania Society meeting, and a chance to watch a taping of a tv show. The ebay auction raised over $8,000 for the Boys and Girls Club. If you read the Inky in print last week your copy of Parade Magazine had a cover story on the Boys and Girls Club. It is worth a read. Denzel Washington, for one, attributes his success to a boyhood mentor in a Boys and Girls Club.

Hillary Clinton and Rick Santorum can argue over whether it takes a village or a family to raise a child, and use the subject as a political football. In the real world, I know a lot of people who have taken an interest in a child outside their immediate family, and made a real impact. Sometimes the child lived with them, sometimes for years, sometimes it was just simply taking an interest. It resonates with me at the moment because one of the Little Janes has a friend that is falling between the cracks. Two or three other adults who know this lost boy have unofficially named me "point person" in trying to find him and see what is going on with him, and I am having little success. There is very little we can do, other than monitor and offer tea and sympathy. In a lot of situations that is nowhere near enough, but if that's all you've got, then that's all you've got, and you give it.

I thought Flavia's charity auction was a splendid idea. And I wish her well with her new website.