A place to see good, share good, and do good.

I am spotlighting Terri Winaught because of the many years I have known her and she has been a member of One World Blue, I have been honored and uplifted by her presence in our organization. To me Terri, represents and signifies what we should aspire to and what One World Blue believes in: to be kind, compassionate and caring for all human beings and animals on our planet and to live a life of respect and diligence in serving others and our Creator. Terri is an inspiration to me and my family, especially my mother Iris and my wife Baila, and she is also an inspiration to our team for the hard work and diligence with which she carries herself through all of her life's commitments whether it be at BOLD, One World Blue, her church and choir or to her husband and family. Terri is the customer support director for our team and I chose her as such because I have experienced her work on the phone and email with her pleasant voice and clarity with which she expresses herself. Thank you Terri for believing in us and being a team member. We are so very honored and proud.

I would like to share with you an essay that Terri has written which testifies to her greatness in both intellect and compassion and will also show you why she is part of our shared vision for One World Blue. After this essay there is also a bio of her life:

THE COLOR OF LOVE
by Terri Winaught
"Mom, why does Charles speak with a southern accent?" I asked with a nine-year-old's curiosity.
"He's Negro, honey."
"Oh," okay."
Although I was beginning to learn about racial differences, I still had no idea of the extent to which they had torn the fabric of American society. It wasn't long, however, before I heard family members speak disparagingly about persons of color, and watched on TV marches in the South that broke my heart. Why did Montgomery Alabama Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor have to spray fire hoses on, and send attack dogs after, marchers who were assembled peacefully, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution? Why were Black southerners and supporters beaten so badly on the Pettus Bridge while marching from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, the capital, that March 7th, 1965 is sometimes called, "Bloody Sunday?" And isn't Judy Collins' lullaby to Medgar Evers' son, after his father's murder, a sad commentary on hatred: "Bye, bye, my baby, I'll rock you to sleep; sing you a sad song, it might make you weep. Your Daddy is dead, and he'll never come back; and the reason they killed him: because he was black." (Though this assassination occurred in 1964, it took 40 years for Byron de la Beckwith to be convicted and imprisoned for life.)
To say more about peaceful protests, when a white woman from Michigan, Viola Lieuzzo, dared to walk in solidarity with the Selma marchers, she was killed by the Ku Klux Klan on March 27th, 1965. (On the album "Treat me Right," Blues singer Robin Rogers sings a tribute to Lieuzzo entitled, "Color Blind Angel.)"
On a more personal note, my mother-who usually couldn't have been more loving and nurturing-threatened to have juvinile court declare me incorrigible for dating a black man. I was also the target of comments like, "If you could see, you would feel differently," and, "You always stick up for "the colored," so why don't you just go live with them?" Despite such insults, I believe in color blind angels. I believe that color blind angels can heal the wounds that conflict creates and reconcile willing spirits.
I also believe in Gandhi's philosophy that "while violence may be a temporary solution, the evil it does is permanent." I believe in a similar statement by Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. that, "what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men will build up."
I'll conclude by comparing my beliefs to a tightly knitted afghan: I casted on stitches of curiosity; I knitted rows of tightly held beliefs; I pearled panels of opposite values; and I'm binding off with my belief that love comes in all colors.

A bio for Terri:

Theresa Mary Cwiklinski on March 13, 1953, life began with immeasurable uncertainty for this two-pound premature newborn.

When Theresa-who would come to prefer to be called Terri-turned three months old and was discharged from Frankfort Hospital, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by doctors who didn't expect her to survive, those physicians turned this frail baby over to her family with the words: "I wouldn't expect anything from this child but a life of disability and hardship: In fact, she's likely to be blind, crippled, and retarded."

Though a diagnosis of irreversible blindness was devastating for Terri's loving mother, Rose, Terri grew to be neither crippled nor retarded. In fact, she graduated third in her high school class in June, 1972 from the Overbrook School for the Blind and went on to graduate first with a Bachelor's degree in secondary education from Duquesne University and a Masters degree in education with an emphasis in counseling from that same university. (Terri also attended Chatham College (now Chatham University), after moving from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, PA in 1972.)

Terri's multifaceted accomplishments include: winning the Jefferson Award for Community Service, serving on the Board of Western PA BOLD for seventeen years, serving as Fundraising Chair for nine of those years, and being the first blind person to graduate from the city of Pittsburgh's Citizen's Police Academy.

"I'm really excited about this business!" Terri exclaimed to One World Blue CEO Joel Pirchesky. "I love it," Terri continued "because I love fundraising so much that I could just fundraise my little hands off." Some additional fundraising capacities in which Terri has served are: conducting fundraising research for a friend during 2005 and 2006, reviewing fundraising proposals in 2008, and helping a major mental-health facility write a grant proposal for accessible computer software to benefit the blind- and vision-impaired. (The proposal just mentioned was recently accepted for complete funding by a major health-care foundation.)

In short, Terri Winaught, proud wife of fellow BOLD member Jim Winaught is a mother, stepmother, and grandmother who named her business--the proceeds from which will benefit Blind Outdoor Leisure Development (BOLD)--Buy for Good Now because nothing is more important to Terri than doing good for others and helping them "do good" for themselves.
Terri will be "doing good" for One World Blue and the nonprofit community by serving as Fundraising Chair of One World Blue and offering guidance and support to interested agencies and organizations.