I first crossed paths with Joe Don (JD), the Founder and Creator of SomewhereOver, more than a dozen years ago. We were among a small group of then young up-and-coming professionals handpicked to participate in a prestigious business leadership program. Sponsored by the largest and most influential business organization in the state (and collectively across the US), the still-successful program was created to identify top community leaders who showed a desire to bring about change, and to provide these leaders with the additional education and resources needed to lead the state’s commerce to higher levels of success in the years that followed.
In the years that followed, our individual careers flourished and we both enjoyed many professional successes, but eventually our career paths led us in different geographic directions. Before we moved away, we were blessed to share what I now recognize as a life-changing experience, one that allowed us to give back to the community where we met through volunteering together.
It started out simple enough, as so many life-changing experiences do, with our only intentions being to provide needed support and spread deserved love.
Then there was the first hug. The one that changed it all.
I recruited JD to volunteer at the annual Special Olympics event. I remember he was more than willing to give of his time, despite having to rearrange his work week and related travel plans. He asked few questions, and showed up on time with a smile stretched ear-to-ear and an eagerness that was hard to miss as he bound across the player’s field to report for his volunteer duty.
He dug his hands deep in the pockets of his faded blue jeans as he approached. His eyes danced as they spanned the already underway sporting events, and his head tilted as he took in the endless wave of excited screams that only victorious children can emit. Looking back, I can’t recall if I told JD that I had volunteered him to be an official hugger. I do remember pointing him in the direction of the next race with little instruction, hoping for the best.
It was chaotic, to say the least. Multiple games, races, and other sporting events taking place at once. Children of varying ages with varying degrees of intellectual disabilities all competing like the world-class champions they are. Most had trained year round for this day and the excitement felt across those playing fields was a strong force I felt deep in my soul, and one I’ll never forget. I remember hoping JD’s experience would be as positive and fulfilling as mine, for I had recognized in him a burning desire to give back as passionate as my own, and prayed quietly that his stent as a volunteer hugger would fan the flames of this desire and lead to future volunteer work (although I couldn’t imagine any as gratifying as volunteer hugging back then).
JD took his position at a nearby finish line. He hugged each child as he or she made their way across it, the pride of a champion as evident on his face as theirs. The day was a long one and some races went on indefinitely, requiring great patience of the volunteer huggers. After all, dedicated huggers don’t walk away from a finish line until every participating Olympian has crossed… and is celebrated and hugged.
My friend JD proved to be among the most dedicated huggers and while we were busy hugging different Olympians at different events, I caught glances of him giving back that day and knew then, as I know now, that his true calling in life is to give back.
I’d like to think it all started that day, on those expansive playing fields, amid the escalating excitement of hundreds of children achieving their dreams, as my fellow volunteer hugger cheered on these children’s extraordinary efforts and saw each through to the finish line. But JD’s quest to help others, to find a way to love and support those in need, and to give back to the people and world around him, started long before.
JD was born a hugger, one who has lovingly, openly, and without question or judgment, embraced so many – undoubtedly before that day, and surely many, many days since. And his days of hugging are far from over.
Recently, I moved back to the state where we first met. JD, his wife, and their two children now live in a neighboring state. Through an unexpected chain of events, an odd twist or two of fate, and strange circumstance, our paths crossed once again. In fact, when we first spoke after years of being incommunicado it was just before my move back to the area where I live now, which is very close to where we volunteered years ago. During one of these first conversations, we talked on the phone as JD sat in a cool shallow stream. On the other end of the line, I sat on the edge of a dock in Canada, feet swirling in the water below as I looked out across the beautiful lake in front of me.
I listened as JD talked excitedly about his wonderful family – two special parents who I will always adore, a brother, sister-in-law and their children, and a wife and son he clearly cherished, as well as his successful career. I was thrilled to find my friend happy, healthy and thriving –personally and professionally, after all these years. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was leaving some important news out.
We spoke a few times over the next several months. Each time I knew there was something more – something left unspoken. Something yet to come. I knew my intuition was dead-on, but didn’t want to ask. I respected JD and his privacy then as I do now and asking seemed almost intrusive. If he wanted to tell me, he would. Maybe he was just waiting for the right time.
Finally, JD told me he had a business idea he wanted to run by me. Still, it took some persuasion to pull it out of him. I had never known him to hold back so I knew this was very important to him – so important that he had a hard time putting it all into words. When he did, I listened intently as my friend struggled to verbally piece together a puzzle he had been creating in his mind for sometime. It was a lot to take in.
My first thought: Wow! My second: JD had obviously outgrown the business development program that originally brought us together, with years of advanced business education and experience now under his belt. What’s more, his numerous business achievements spoke for themselves; but what came across loud and clear that afternoon was none of his achievements, and nothing on his impressive resume brought him the sense of deep fulfillment and personal satisfaction that helping others and giving back to the people and world around him does.
I hung on his every word and as I did, I tried to reconcile it all. Funny enough, my thoughts kept returning to a single place. That place: JD as an official hugger.
It was obvious from the business model he detailed that his passion for helping others had only grown over the years since his debut as an official hugger, as had his desire to give back, and his quest to bring about positive change, but what really impressed me was his talk of how he wanted to help others give back. He may have still been piecing it all together during this early stage of business talks, but his logic was as sound as always: Bring together more people and bringing about more change in inevitable. Not only did he want to bring together more people to bring about more change, he wanted these people to reap the undeniable benefits of giving back – the deep fulfillment and personal satisfaction us huggers already know. He recognized this as a unique win-win, one that could be grown to limitless reach and limitless potential.
As I listened, I considered the irony of JD helping those children achieve and celebrate their dreams as they crossed the finish line years ago and his own dream of paying the loving, supportive spirit of a hugger forward today, and tears welled up in my eyes. My friend and I were embarking on a new journey, one already somewhat familiar though, thanks to our hugging past.
He called this new journey, his own lifelong dream, SomewhereOver.
Admittedly, I knew from that first conversation about SomewhereOver that JD was onto something big. This certainly was as much about the exciting ideas and extraordinary goals JD laid out for SomewhereOver, as it was for him and his track record of success in this area. So it was without hesitation that I agreed to join him and his wife and SomewhereOver partner, Robin, as a Contributor on the SomewhereOver.com team. In doing so, I have the unique opportunity to work closely with a trusted, respected friend from my past and his obviously very special wife, along with the rest of the SomewhereOver.com team, to positively impact the futures of deserving entrepreneurs and to involve each in a bigger, collaborative effort to support, assist and give back. This cycle will repeat itself many times over, thanks to JD, Robin and the SomewhereOver.com team, and snowball into a grassroots effort that will be a catalyst for change across our communities and eventually across the globe.
Through SomewhereOver.com, we will raise the bar for corporate philanthropy and individual charity and will work tirelessly together to set examples of positive, productive giving, and to foster new ideas and new ways of doing things through ongoing dialogue and the exchange of information and ideas with like-minded professionals like you – all in an effort to help others to the finish line and to be there to celebrate their victory when they cross.
Together, we can take victory hugging to a whole new level. All you have to do is open your mind and your heart (and your arms, of course) to embrace the idea of helping one another as we work together to achieve dreams – your dreams, my dreams, JD’s dreams, and the dreams of people you may never know – people who live on the other side of town, across the US, or far, far away some place… somewhere over.
As a professional copywriter, I look forward to using my craft to support SomewhereOver.com members as we work as a cohesive team to help each achieve their dreams. As we move closer to achieving their individual dreams, we achieve my own, for using my expertise to help advance others is a dream I never want to stop achieving. Thanks to JD and SomewhereOver.com, I don’t have to. Better yet, through SomewhereOver.com, I can find even more ways to help others achieve their dreams, opening up endless possibilities for myself as I do. It’s part of the win-win JD recognized early on, and what’s evolved to now become SomewhereOver.com.
Here at SomewhereOver.com, if you can dream it, we can work together to make it happen.