Last night I went and saw Greg Mortenson speak at a local high school gym. He's on a speaking tour, and just happened to be on his Southern California swing just after I finished Three Cups of Tea.
The gym was packed with people who have read his book, and/or support his work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Greg is a big bear of a man, and seeing him in person, it's even more amazing to think about all he as accomplished in the past 12 years. Alot of his speaking engagements are actually with the US Military. Two days ago he was asked to speak to 2000 Marines at Camp Pendleton preparing to ship out to Afghanistan. Tomorrow he is speaking to the US Air Force Academy. I applaud our military's efforts to educate the servicemen and women about the people of the region from a non-military perspective.
Mortenson was speaking as part of a program sponsored by the City of Huntington Beach - "HB Reads". I hadn't heard of it before, but what a great idea - all adult readers, students and families in Huntington Beach read the same book at the same time for a community-wide experience - and then can participate in discussion groups, and in this instance at least, attend an event by the author.
posted by Diane at 11:22 AM
3 Comments:
Wow, that program sounds great!
Sounds like it was a good program--I know a lot of communities are doing "Community reads" programs... Maybe I should suggest it to our mayor (I don't know how much he reads) or at least to our school district--it seems to be a natural way to help children read by watching their parents read.
sage - the mayor was present, and the program seemed to have a lot of support from the community. I think it's a great way to bring together community members of all ages.
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