There are all all kinds of ways to make a difference in the lives of others. See how these folks do it!

Walter H.G. Lewin
World of Discovery

If you were to attend one of Walter H.G. Lewin's physics lectures at MIT, you wouldn't find the professor behind a podium, reading from notes or Powerpoint slides. You'd be more likely to find him swinging from the ceiling to demonstrate how a pendulum works, or swatting a student with cat hair to create an electric charge. "Students might not remember a complicated equation," he says. "But they will remember seeing their professor flying through the air."

Walter's students include more than the bright minds who attend MIT. Thanks to YouTube and iTunes U, Walter's lectures reach a wider audience than he ever could have dreamed. "I get so excited about physics," he says. "I love being able to share that with my students, but also with people who are seven years old, or ninety."

When he began teaching in 1972, Walter stuck to a traditional lecture style. "I thought I had to cram all the information into one hour." But he soon realized that students retain what they find interesting, and that they're more likely to be interested in interactive demonstrations than straightforward lectures. "It's not about what you cover," says Walter. "It's about what you uncover."

What Walter's web-based audiences have uncovered is a love for physics they might not have realized they had. "I get letters from children telling me they understand something very complicated, and that they think I'm funny."

Despite spending so much time in the classroom giving lectures, and just as much time outside the classroom preparing them (each new lecture takes him 25 hours), Walter still makes time to reply to every single email he gets from his internet fans. "People should find physics interesting," he says. "It's a part of life."

Walter says the most important lesson that anybody can learn from one of his lectures, be it in the classroom or on the computer is, "Not to look at the equation, but to look through the equation to see the world around them."
—Jen MacNeil

https://ptmag.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=861&prmID=20


Calling Home
Brittany and Robbie Bergquist

In a tech-obsessed age where we can email, text, surf the web, share photos and of course, talk on our cell phones, staying connected is something most of us take for granted. But for soldiers serving overseas, one call home could be the ray of hope they need to get through situations where their lives are in danger. So when Norwell, Massachusetts, siblings Brittany and Robbie Bergquist discovered that calls came out of soldiers' pockets, they knew they had to do something. In April 2004, they started Cell Phones for Soldiers, a nonprofit organization that's not looking for your money—just your old cell phones.

Brittany and Robbie take unwanted phones and recycle them (getting about $5 each), then use the profits to buy prepaid calling cards. Their concept was simple—ask people to make a difference without spending a dime, and turn abandoned phones into lifelines for American soldiers. The kids were amazed how quickly their local initiative gained nationwide support. "It was like wildfire, spreading across the country," Robbie says. Receiving about 20,000 phones a month, the Bergquists have raised more than two million dollars, set up almost 7,000 drop-off sites, and sent more than 400,000 phone cards overseas—all before graduating high school.

"The experiences we've had so far, some people will never get the opportunity to have," says Brittany, who will begin her senior year in the fall. They've been interviewed by major news outlets, surprised with $100,000 college scholarships from AT&T, and even invited to the White House. Robbie, a soon-to-be junior, says their biggest reward are the emails and letters from grateful soldiers. "To hear them cry over something two kids are doing, it keeps us going."

It's that grounded, genuine compassion that makes the Bergquists and CPFS so extraordinary. "They're just unbelievable kids," says Susan Bean, spokesperson for AT&T, the organization's corporate sponsor. "They're so excited and so committed. They give everything of themselves and don't take a single thing."

How do they manage to lead high-school lives with the demands of running a nonprofit? It's not easy. They've missed sporting events, family dinners come second to interviews, and time with friends is a luxury, but for these two, it's worth it. "This is not a chore or a job, this is something we truly love to do," Brittany says. "The troops are protecting our freedom every day. They are the reason we live the way we do. This is just a little way of saying thank you."
—Jen Ator

Carolyn Corbett
Poetry, Hope and Healing

Carolyn Corbett doesn't know what led her down that dark hallway in the theatre department at the State University of New York at New Paltz a few years ago. She'd gone to SUNY New Paltz as an undergrad and came back for an art exhibition. She wandered down the hallway and noticed a flyer pinned to the wall. "Seeking an energetic individual to create a theatre program for people with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries," the sign read.

"I almost jumped through the ceiling," Carolyn recalls. "I said, ‘That's my job!'" Her experience fit the description. She had studied theatre and visual arts in college and earned an MFA in acting at NYU. She'd been teaching speech and movement classes at SUNY New Paltz while acting and conceiving, directing and producing original works.

Carolyn got the job at Northeast Center for Special Care, an innovative healthcare facility dedicated to the rehabilitation, recovery and community re-entry of people who are recovering from multiple disabilities due to brain injuries. She started out doing theatre with the resident-neighbors (the term used for the individuals treated there) and soon discovered something stunning and unexpected: "I remember listening to the Resident-Neighbors as they shared their thoughts and feelings and perceptions of life, and thinking: This is poetry in its purest manifestation. Their thoughts and feelings, their stories are mythic human tales that need to be documented."

Within six months, the theatre program was transformed into The Creative Writing Program. Today, four times a week, Carolyn teaches a writing workshop in a room filled with pens, paper, books, music and "the mundus imaginalis, the land of the imagination," she says. At the end of each session the participants share their writing; some have even published their work. "No matter what our physical or cognitive circumstances, there exists within each of us, within every person, countless worlds—worlds within worlds, teeming with imagination, with possibility and with desire," Carolyn explains about what she has witnessed in her class.

She produced and directed a documentary about the resident-neighbors called The Edge of Things. It features Lucille, a woman recovering from a brain tumor that left her paralyzed and impaired her memory and speech. Today Lucille is writing and performing her poetry and learning to walk again. It's the spirit and strength of the resident-neighbors at Northeast Center that make it such an extraordinary place to work for Carolyn. As she says, "People who have been classified as having no rehab potential by conventional measures suddenly burst forth and reveal an indomitable genius."
—Leslie Kramer

Hal Honeyman
Custom Rides

Hal Honeyman has always considered himself a compassionate person. In 1975, when his family was in the early days of owning and operating the Bike Rack, a bicycle shop in St. Charles, Illinois, Hal didn't think twice about helping a disabled man who was in the market for a customized bike. "This was in the days of ten-speeds with low handlebars," explains Hal. "I was able to put on an attachment that allowed this guy, who had limited use of his arms, to reach the grips."

After his son Jacob was born with cerebral palsy, Hal revisited his knack for building specialized bikes. Seeing how much freedom and joy Jacob's personalized bike gave him, Hal launched Creative Mobility, an offshoot of the Bike Rack that's devoted to customized bikes. "We look at each bike individually," says Hal. "Each project is about the person who will be getting that bike."

For each customization, Hal learns another new trick. "We can make a hybrid from a regular bike, or we can modify a recumbent bike or add attachments for a prosthesis," he says of the countless possibilities.

Creative Mobility soon inspired Project Mobility, a nationwide nonprofit that promotes bike riding among people with disabilities. Regular meet-ups and special events allow riders with customized bikes to get together for long rides. Hal often brings modified bikes to groups like Camp Independence, a sports camp at a children's hospital. "We want the kids to know that they can ride a bike just like everybody else," he says.

The events aren't just limited to kids either. Hal and Project Mobility recently assisted with the Wounded Warrior Project's Soldier Ride for Iraq war veterans in Chicago. "We spent a few days fitting and adjusting the bikes, then they rode three hundred miles in four days," he says.

Hal plans to continue Project Mobility for as long as he can, and his motivation is simple: "My impulse, whenever I see someone who needs help, is to help them."
—JM