Give Us Wings

Saturday night I attended a benefit dinner at the Landmark Center in St. Paul for the terrific local charity group Give Us Wings. They’re involved in giving aid to a group of villages in Kenya and Uganda. Their goals are highly focused and simple: feeding the hungry, giving medicine to the sick, sending the kids to school. Everything Christians are supposed to be doing (even though GUW has no religious affiliation and I’d describe them as more humanist in nature).

I know and trust their leadership. They have no salaried staff, no overhead, or administrative fees. In fact, all the members themselves incur significant financial tolls every year through their continuous giving. To anyone feeling charitably generous, I endorse Give Us Wings and encourage you to visit their Web site to learn more about them. They may not be changing the world, but they are changing, and saving, the lives of a small group of people in a forgotten little corner of Africa. As an abstract donor looking for a sound charitable investment, that’s all you can really hope for.

And sometimes you get more than you hope for, as I can attest from Saturday night. Call it dumb luck or call it boomeranging good karma, but the fates conspired to seat me at the same table as the key note speaker for the night, KMSP-TV’s anchorperson Robyne Robinson. She’s been a dazzling fixture on the local media scene for over a decade, so most Minnesotans know her as a smart, beautiful, talented broadcaster. Those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her might not know she’s also delightfully charming and entirely devoid of pretense and arrogance. These traits are most unusual for big time media celebrities, as anyone who’s spent time with the hosts of the Northern Alliance Radio Show will tell you. Most amazingly for someone of her stature, Robyne Robinson is FUN to be around, even when she’s hanging with a bunch of relative nobodies (no offense to everyone else at the table, besides Robyne and me).

As an example, before her speech on Saturday, there was some light dinner conversation and I commented that I saw her mention on the news the other night that she scored Prince tickets (for his June series of shows in St. Paul). That lead to a discussion of his music and then supposed “farewell” tours (of which Prince’s current tour is supposed to be, at least for him performing his hits). Then at some point I told a highly relevant story about seeing downward spiraling Night Ranger perform at Mississippi Live in the mid-90’s. This caused Ms. Robinson to close her eyes in a rock and roll squint, bang her head (in pantomime fashion) and belt out a note perfect rendition of the chorus to Sister Christian.

You're motoring
What's your price for flight
In finding Mister Right
You'll be all right tonight

It was an hilarious moment, and something I can’t imagine Don Shelby doing. Or Stuart A. Lindeman (or Russell Shimooka, or whoever is anchoring over at Channel 11 these days).

Not long after, Robyne got up to give her speech- a passionate, inspiring message about hope and responsibility. I can’t do it justice in summary, but in short, her thesis was that due to the American system of governance and economic organization, hope exists in abundance in this country. It’s the most valuable resource we have and the greatest thing we can share with those who have none. She closed with a challenge for the audience to live up to their responsibilities as Americans to give hope to our suffering brothers and sisters in Africa. And I think it worked, since amid the cascade of applause for her, one could clearly hear the sound of check books flipping open all over the room.

It was a great speech and a great evening. I again encourage anyone interested to check out Give Us Wings. And tune in to Channel 9 at 9 PM. Because if you’re not watching Robyne Robinson, you’re just watching the news.