With Much Gratitude!
Wow! Wow! This is 2022, the twenty-second year in the 21st century and the beginning of the fifth-year of the Renaissance. This is also twenty-two years after Y2K, when it was expected that major systems, commerce and life would grind to a halt because of the failure to program computers for the year 2000. Between the years 2000 and 2011, we have had several deadly earthquakes, hurricanes and a tsunami, that have all killed more than a half-million people. The greatest economic shock of the 2000s so far, was the Great Recession spawned by the housing and financial crisis. It eliminated billions in market value worldwide, cost millions of jobs, and taught many of us that we are just a paycheck away, or loss of a job, from financial ruin. And now, two years into a pandemic complicated by misinformation, disinformation and vaccine hesitancy, a pandemic that has taken more than five million lives globally, and that has brought some of us closer to our own mortality, here we are in 2022. Unbelievable!
But Maya Angelou put in all in perspective when she said, “This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.”
That is gratitude!
Now, the Foundation wishes to express its gratitude. Despite your personal challenges and inconceivable hardships, you displayed resilience, grit, and fortitude. Despite all that you have endured, you made the last two years the most successful in the Foundation’s short history. Alfred North Whitehead, British mathematician and philosopher said, “No one who achieves success does so without the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.”
But, the generosity you showed and that allowed the Foundation to donate learning devices to students and schools, excavated a sobering reality: the inadequacy of our efforts. The contributions we made to the COVID relief effort in Jamaica through the $1.0 million donation, and the food drive to provide care packages to the elderly and shut-ins’ (again made possible by you), and all the other things we were able to do, plus the efforts of other individuals and institutions, still left many of our students without the means to learn, left patients without adequate healthcare, and left many still hungry.
The Foundation and its initiatives evolved from the desire to address these and other problems, now and in the future, in a big way. An indisputable problem that all global citizens face, is to live a life of dignity and worth. That is a big problem for many, and one that we are all called upon to solve, as noted in the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals proffered by the United Nations. So the Foundation will continue to pursue an agenda that is big and bold, that will address these problems, and it will create institutions like the Renaissance Endowment Fund, that will be more than capable, in the future, to meet the challenges of the moment.
To the team members, you inspire hope every day. The sacrifice in time and other resources you have made is because of your commitment to this single cause, of improving lives and futures. Thank you!
To our corporate donors and sponsors, your support underlines your social responsibility imperative, and that good global citizenship is not just the responsibility of individuals. Each time you supported, you made an invaluable investment in the future. Thank you!
Finally, the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson said that there are two kinds of gratitude that we feel, “The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.” Thank you for all your giving. And know that in your giving you have received much blessings.
With all that you have made possible, with all that you have survived, again, as Maya Angelou said, “This is a wonderful day I have never seen this one before.”
With deepest gratitude, and warmest wishes, stay safe.
Happy New Year!
Malton D. Edwards
President