Art for Good

You can win cool stuff, just read on first.


For those of you who don’t know, S. works in construction. Last year he began working with Marcelo, an ayudante de trasador. Please, forgive me, my Spanish construction vocab sucks so I don't know exactly what that title would be in English (*updated: Isabel says surveyor, YAY for people who are way better at Spanish than I am!), but my husband has given me a general description of the job:

The trasador takes the plans and then he uses the actual measurements to make the real life markings. For example, if he’s “trasando,” for the electric plans, he looks at where the wires are supposed to go and then measures and draws on the ground (or wall, or whatever) so that when the electrician comes he knows where he’s supposed to wire. The trasador also does other basic general tasks on the construction site like use a level to go behind the people pouring the cement and making sure that it’s flat.

For a while Marcelo was the helper of the trasador doing these main jobs. Then last summer he was promoted to the position of actual trasador. He was thrilled. Like S., he loves construction and actually enjoys going to work everyday. And since S. has known him he’s been talking about trying to save up money to go to school. Unfortunately, life has interfered. He wasn’t born wealthy, meaning, to put it nicely, he went to a shitty high school. In Chile, a public high school often condemns a person. Marcelo attended a technical high school and specialized in the profession of electrician. He never had money to go to college and started working right away. Now 23 years old, he’s still dreaming of going back to school so he can get a good degree.

Marcelo lives at home and helps support his family with the money that he makes working as a trasador. His girlfriend lives with them as well, in Marcelo’s room. To try and give them a little bit of freedom and comfort he bought a small refrigerator for their bedroom. Right after he bought, after saving up extra cash for months, his mom and dad’s fridge broke so Marcelo gave them his brand new one. One day Marcelo hopes to ask his girlfriend to marry him and wants them to be able to move out and live on their own – so much so that he applied for housing through the government. Unfortunately, his minimal salary is too much for him to actually be considered poor, and the fact that he and his girlfriend still don’t have kids counts against him since priority is given to those who have little ones to look after. His only chance of a better life is through a better education.

All my life people have helped me, from the little things to the big –For cheerleading when the team voted on buying not only t-shirts with our logo, but a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants on top of the two pairs of shoes we already had to pay for out of pocket, I was devastated. We were all supposed to buy those things so we looked unified in our warm-ups but I didn’t have that kind of money. Really embarrassed and feeling humiliated, I waited until everyone had left practice to talk to my coach. I told her I couldn’t buy those things and that I would have to wear clothes I already owned. She said, “Kyle, I’ll take care of it.” She was a woman of few words we never spoke of it again but when the sweatshirts, sweatpants, t-shirts and tennis shoes were delivered there was one of each with my name on it. I never knew if she paid for my stuff out of her own pocket or if she just charged everybody a dollar or two more to cover my costs. And then there was my aunt who loaned my mom money to buy a house when she was newly divorced and broke so we could have a backyard to play in, in a good neighborhood to grow up. That same aunt made sure that in penny pinching times for our family, the Christmas tree always had more gifts under it than any kid could ever need. Literally, I could list hundreds of good deeds people have done that have affected my life in so many ways. I’m tearing up just remembering…

When people ask for donations to various causes, I’ve always tried my hardest to say yes, even if I just had five bucks to give.

Finally, after all these years of working my ass off, while I don't have time to spend working for a charity, I’m in a position to make a difference. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a charity that I really believe in with all my heart and soul because A. there’s too much corruption and I don’t trust that my money actually helps those who need it, and B. a lot of times charities are just Band-Aids on a bigger problem, i.e. giving food to the needy. Of course the needy have to eat and I’m glad people are feeding them, but at the same time, I wish there was more that could be done to help those folks so they’d never need food donations again. Does that make sense?

Marcelo is hardworking, ambitious and a good person. All he needs is someone to give him a chance. That’s why we’ve decided to pay for him to get the degree he wants – Tecnico en Construccion. He wants to get it from the DUOC, which is the most respected of all technical universities because it’s directly associated with La Universidad Catolica de Chile, in the top two of prestigious colleges in Chile, and also one of the highest ranking in all of Latin America. If he’s able to get this degree his earning power will quadruple from what he’s currently making.

Tuition is 97,000 Chilean pesos a month ($170.82 U.S. dollars at today’s exchange rate), plus 50,000 ($88.05) matriculation fee once a semester. S. and I have committed to paying this for him. The only stipulation is that he remains one hundred percent committed to his education. He’ll be attending night school Mon-Fri after work starting March of ’09.

From today, October 6^th through November 6^th, all proceeds of my photography print sales will go towards Marcelo’s education. So head on over to my photography page and start shopping J If you’re in Chile and you want to order a print, please feel order now but be advised: all print orders here will ship out on November 6^th regardless of the date you order so that they’ll all go under one shipment. If I submit individual orders, shipping costs to Chile negate any profit and therefore would be contributing virtually no money to Marcelo’s fund. Shipping within the U.S. is free and therefore photos will be sent out on the day they’re ordered. For prints sent to any other place in the world please email me: kylehepp at gmail dot com.

And now, for the fun stuff: to promote the cause I’m doing a giveaway.

For the ladies – I’m giving away 3 MAC Viva Glam lipsticks (or lipglasses), for people in Chile, in the shade of your choice as long as the shade is available at Parque Arauco MAC counter or MAC of Falabella in Providencia. Last time I went they had every shade. The same prize goes for those of you in the U.S., but I’ll order the product online and have it shipped to you. Each lipstick is a 12,000 peso value.

For the guys – I’m giving away one TONIC t-shirt of your choice, worth $45.

100% of proceeds from MAC’s Viva Glam products go towards supporting the fight against AIDS/HIV, and about 40% of the proceeds from TONIC’s t-shirts go towards either providing dental care for kids in Colombia, soccer balls for kids in Africa, protecting endangered coral reefs, providing shoes for kids in Haiti, safety, nutrition, and education for street kids in India, mosquito nets for people in Africa, drinking water for people in Bangladesh, or fund the planting of trees in North America to combat deforestation, depending on which t-shirt you choose. The other 60% of proceeds for the TONIC tees go towards running the TONIC website and manufacturing the t-shirt itself.

Sorry guys, that you only get one chance but over 80% of people reading this blog are female, so you’re outnumbered!

How do you enter?

The contest is simple. Link to this post in a blog post of your own. Once you leave me a comment with a link to your post, linking to mine you’ll be entered in a random drawing.

If you don’t have a blog email a link to this post to ten people and copy or blind copy me on the email. I solemnly swear that I will not use their emails for anything under any circumstances. Once you have done so, leave a comment on this post and you will be entered in the drawing.

There will be two separate drawings – in the first 3 winners will be chosen to receive the MAC lipstick or lipglass and in the second one winner will be chosen to receive the t-shirt. If you’re a guy, but you’d rather be entered in the MAC drawing to try and win a present for your mom or girlfriend just make note of it in the comment and vice versa if you’re a girl and would rather have a t-shirt (they also come in women’s versions).

The contest runs from today, October 6th, through November 6th. I'll announce the winners of the drawing on November 7th.

I’ll be keeping track of how much money we make for Marcelo on this blog. Once we get going I’ll install one of those counter thingys. I’ll be closely tracking every single cent that comes in so if there are any questions about where the money is going, feel free to email me. I’m all about transparency here at JMCS.

And if we don’t raise a cent through print sales, don’t worry, Marcelo is still going to college. S. and I are 100% committed to paying for his first semester, and as long as he does well, we’ll continue to pay until he graduates from the two and a half year program. We aren't doing this because he's some kind of charity case or because we feel bad for him. We're doing this because we believe in him.

So here's the link for prints if you're interested! Thanks so much! *Edited to add, postcard sale proceeds count too.

By entering in this contest or donating to the cause by buying prints you are agreeing not to sue me for any reason. I don’t know how legal online stuff works so I just thought I’d throw that in there to cover my ass just in case one of you happens to be crazy.