Thanksgiving is soon upon us and I’m reflecting about where I was last year…  Almost one year ago I took part in a wonderful experience in Palm Beach.  For many months prior to the event, I helped to organize this event.  We had weekly phone meetings and made some great plans!

Do you recognize Don Shula with me?

We asked that each attendee donate a minimum of $5,000 to the Caring House Project Foundation. Why $5,000 you ask? With $5,000 you will provide shelter for one desperately homeless family. That’s right, the Caring House Project Foundation can build a 500 square foot concrete home with metal roof, kitchen, two rooms, front porch and bathroom, all for $10 a square foot!

Should you build two homes by donating $10,000 or more you will be invited to a special lunch the day the event concludes inside a $30 million home.

Should you want to stay as a guest at Frank McKinney’s personal oceanfront home for the two nights ( there was room for 5 guests), we offered this opportunity by donating to build three homes, or a minimum of $15,000.

Rich DeVos and Douglas Doebler.
Rich DeVos is the founder of Amway and a fellow Rotarian.

Many of the hosts for this event have donated significant sums of money to CHPF and have seen the silver lining as they drove through the misery of extreme poverty in Cap Haitien, Haiti to reach the self sustaining village built by the Caring House Project Foundation that was inaugurated just a few months ago. A village that has touched over 1000 homeless men, women and children.

This is the famous painter, Michael Isreal, on the left and me, Douglas Doebler on the left.  When I was on Haiti, I took a picture of this young boy.  Michael painted this portrait of him & we auctioned off the painting at the event.  Did you see the T-shirt that I designed as a birthday gift to Frank when I visited Haiti in February?

Michael Isreal does big charity auctions – paintings often sell for $50,000. Watch these videos to see some of his work… make sure to turn up the sound!  This New York City video has had almost 8 million hits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZFkZiwMLZ4

This video of his Big Brother/Big Sister painting in Tampa has had thousands of hits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1bCKtX4uEc

This is Frank McKinney with me, Douglas Doebler.  Frank was the creator of this event with the Haiti boy painting – this painting raised $45,000.

The event was a huge success and we raised close to $700,000.  Yes – almost 3/4 of a million dollars!  This money raised will help build next two villages in Haiti.

We did an interesting exercise to “leave your fears behind”…

With 300 people watching, I stepped into a coffin.  It was a little chilling & eerie at the least, but made me think about my “fears” and how to overcome them!

Here is our group touring Frank’s Spec Homes

This photo of Mike Litman (Conversations with Millionaires) and some of the group, including Frank McKinney.  Photos taken by me, Douglas Doebler.

Mike Litman talking to Kendra Todd‘s Mother

My good friend Mark Evans also helped us organize this event.

Click here to read the email I received from Frank after the big event last year.

See for yourself what Frank McKinney and I witnessed that very 1st day I spent in Cap Haitian, Haiti.

Tags: Amway, Charities, Don Shula, Doug Doebler, Frank McKinney, Haiti, Mark Evans, Michael Isreal, Mike Litman, Palm Beach, Rich DeVos

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 am and is filed under Charities, Famous People, Florida, Frank McKinney, Haiti. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.