Lindsey Z. Visits The Herald and Tells Us About the City's Society of Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy

What would you do with 100 dollars? One day Lindsey was having dinner with her friend Joslen, who suprised Lindsey by giving her 100 dollars. Her friend was very mysterious about the money and what Lindsey should do with it. Joslen asked her if she was free on March 6th, but couldn't tell Lindsey what they would do together on that day. Lindsey was skeptical, but she said that she was free.

Little did Lindsey know she would become part of San Francisco's Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. Lindsey had to find the best way to give away the 100 dollar bill. The way the secret society works is that when someone has been given 100 dollars, the person with the 100 dollars has to give the money to someone else very soon.

Lindsey had a lot of options. At a taqueria Lindsey saw a band of sisters from the ages of 8 to 16 called the Sosa Sisters. When Lindsey learned that they had been part of the foster system and had been separate but eventually adopted by one parent, Lindsey wanted to give them the 100 dollars. But instead, she decided to give them her own money, and that's partly how the secret society works. When you begin to think about all the ways you can give, you want to give more. You also realize that even a little amount can help others.

Some other people in the secret society decided to give money in very creative ways: some have given admissions to museums to people, others have hid one dollar bills inside books and added a note about the society in it, some people bought ads on Google and wrote little "be happy" notes and little things like that.

Below is a video, shot by Faryn, with Lindsey and her parents in it.

This second video is the Sosa Sisters, two sets of twins and another sisters, singing the National Anthem at the Giants stadium. You can read more about their story here.

Photo by Jake of The Hillwood Herald

A Challenge to Blow in the Wind!

Today we made another sculpture, as part of the DESIGN SQUAD challenges that engineers Judy and Adam put together. The kinetic sculpture is a challenge where we try to make a sculpture move when we blow. But mine didn't work that way! To make mine work, you need to grab it and spin it with your hands.

To help us today, Lindsey (a friend of Mrs. Moorhead's) came in with her parents from Kansas and gave us a speech about what she does and how she is now part of San Francisco's Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. She works for a IDEO, which is where Judy and Adam work when they are not filming DESIGN SQUAD for PBS Kids.

The company is where people are employed to help other companies design products and services. Lindsey even knows about how the company, with its designers and engineers, helped create the mouse with a rolling ball inside it. Lindsey also talked about this society where you pass on an 100 dollar bill to people in need. Her friend gave the 100 dollar bill to her and told her to pass it on. This seem to be like the movie "Pay It Forward." The society most likely didn't even start here in San Francisco, and it has groups of people donating 100 bills in Greece and New York.

As kids, we could do something similar, but with much less money. Right now, we are doing a Hillwood bake sale to raise money. We also collect change for the Pennies for Patients program, which is also about making a little bit of money do more than you might think possible at first. Lindsey is giving her one hundred dollars to Ms. Woods for the Hillwood upper-grade class.