What We Actually Did.

Good morning, John. I always feel like a little bit of a faker talking about this. Uh like like this shouldn't be my

this. Uh like like this shouldn't be my video. It should be your video. But I

video. It should be your video. But I

also feel like I can not make this video right now because this is a big deal.

Like I remember the 2011 Project for Awesome still trying to figure out exactly what the PA was going to be. And

like leaving comments on YouTube videos had been a really big part of the PA for a long time. Really the reason being is that it confused YouTube's algorithms to promote videos about charities. But that

wasn't really working anymore. But we

wanted to like keep the comments thing.

And we decided that like for a certain number of comments, I can't remember how many, we would donate $10,000 to Partners in Health to support their work in Haiti. And I think that was the first

in Haiti. And I think that was the first time that we directly gave money to Partners in Health. It was a few years later that you told me that you had a big idea for a big project, not

responding to a sudden disaster, which is something that people are pretty good at, but instead responding to like a long-term disaster that was just the way things had been. We have to fight against the way that our brains pay

attention to things. And focusing on something that's bad but has been that way for a long time and is maybe even slowly getting better. That's just hard.

We're not good at that. Even if it's like one of the biggest disasters in the world, if it's not like a sudden news event, that's just not how our minds work. But we aren't just our minds. I

work. But we aren't just our minds. I

mean, we are, but you get what I I'm on a journey of meaning. you pitched me on this thing and you said it was going to be very long and very hard and not something that was going to like make us more popular and and you convinced me in

part by saying like this is not what we would do if we wanted to get the most views. It's what we would do if we

views. It's what we would do if we wanted to do the most good with the views that we have. And this is a little bit profound like the easiest thing to do with views is get more views. The

easiest thing to do with money is get more money. But the whole point of those

more money. But the whole point of those things is that they are valuable and you should be able to turn them towards something valuable and you were saying 10 years ago that that was the right call. We promised Partners in Health

call. We promised Partners in Health that we would raise tens of millions of dollars and we even made a little spreadsheet showing how we were going to do it and I really wish I could find this spreadsheet because I know that it ended up being very wrong but I have

searched for it and I have failed. Some

of the ideas we had definitely did not work. I think in part what making this

work. I think in part what making this commitment did is it like forced us to innovate toward that goal. Like we told them we were going to raise that money and we were going to do that. Like we

made that promise. We made that obligation. We were going to make it

obligation. We were going to make it happen. And that is where this headline

happen. And that is where this headline comes in. And it's wrong. It says that

comes in. And it's wrong. It says that we gave $50 million for the first Nick and Sierra Leone. And this is like definitely not true. All love to the people at Good Good. Thank you for making us look good. Now John and I, we

are like among the top individual donors to this effort. But boy are we not like even 10% of that total amount raised. By

far the biggest thing that we have done is we have simply oriented people's attention toward this thing and uh and there are a few ways that we did it and I I am happy to share those. We started

the awesome socks club and then goodstore which donates all of its profit to charity. A lot of it to this specific effort. oriented. A lot of the

specific effort. oriented. A lot of the Project for Awesome toward Partners in Health specifically. A huge amount of

Health specifically. A huge amount of the money came from just asking a lot of people to sign up to be a monthly small donor to partners in health. Thousands

of people did that and over time that adds up. We recruited people to be

adds up. We recruited people to be Project for Awesome matching donors.

That was a big thing. Partners in Health then showed some of their high dollar donors what this community was doing and it inspired those people to give more.

The Sierra Leoneian Ministry of Health also has been part of this. I wrote

letters to the richest people I knew and I I found out how generous they were.

The most generous of them who had the health of mothers as one of her top priorities and her giving, I'm very sad to say never got to see this moment. And

of course, the man who inspired all of this, Paul Farmer, who started Partners in Health with a really simple notion.

He thought that the idea that some lives are worth more than others is the root of all that is wrong with the world. and

he also didn't get to see this having passed away in Rwanda after a heart problem in 2022. But this weekend during the project for awesome an event that has been instrumental in the construction of the Paul E. Farmer

Maternal Center of Excellence at Kuidu Government Hospital, the first baby was born in the first NICU in Sierra Leon.

34 minutes after the center opened, a woman came into the hospital. Her blood

pressure was dangerously spiking, which can raise the risk of stroke and seizures and organ damage and blood clots. There were already other pregnant

clots. There were already other pregnant women there, but she was triaged to be treated first, and her baby was born by C-section just after 100 p.m. on

Valentine's Day. And that was just one of the things that happened. Another

mother was having chest pains and drove 5 hours to get to the hospital. Another

was past her due date and had an amniotic leak and received the hospital's second C-section later that day. Another woman was delivering at a

day. Another woman was delivering at a nearby clinic when complications presented and she was rushed to the MCOE. At 10:00 a.m., the first premature

MCOE. At 10:00 a.m., the first premature baby was received at the hospital, having been delivered at home. By the

end of the day, they had received their first referral via ambulance, their first vaginal birth. 27 mothers had been admitted and 13 babies had been born.

People keep asking me about this and all I can say is I did none of this. Like,

if I did anything, it was just like fun ideas that helped turn people's heads in a direction. And once their heads were

a direction. And once their heads were turned, they did what was up to them.

But John, you turned my head and Paul Farmer turned yours. 13 babies in one day. John,

day. John, I'll see you on