It has been my dream to travel and help others for as long as I can remember. My parents demonstrated the importance of altruism by doing volunteer work and helping others in numerous ways. My father, a photographer, often donated his pictures for needy causes and would spend time with seniors at the Jewish Retirement Home; my mother volunteered at the local hospital and other sites. Jewish culture was filled with living examples of charity and good deeds (mitzvoth).

I was an avid reader of National Geographic since the age of six. I cannot remember a time when travel to foreign lands was not on my mind. I read many books about travel and my favorite times were often associated with trips I took as a child. I left home at the age of sixteen and traveled across the United States several times by the time I was eighteen. Then I went to Europe and North Africa and I was hooked.

By now I have been to 36 countries including India (seven times), Tibet, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, Israel, Mozambique, Turkey, South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico, and numerous other places in Europe and elsewhere. During the time I was living in New York (1970’s) I became involved with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey (also known as the Mevlevi). I performed this incredibly beautiful ritual for many years in New York. Last year I had the honor to be invited to Istanbul, Turkey and I became the first Westerner to join them in this sacred practice.

While living in New York City in the 1970’s I produced a radio program for several years on WBAI called, "Global Music". Even when I was not literally traveling, I was "traveling" the world to listen and broadcast music from the far corners of the globe.

I became particularly interested in Indian Classical Music and studied the sitar and Indian vocal music for several years. I became a concert manger for one amazing Indian musician named Nikhil Banerjee.

I spent ten years living in New York City, became a public school teacher working in Harlem and in 1977 I was voted teacher of the year in Manhattan and was given the award by Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. who (sadly) outlived his more famous son.

For the past 10 years I have been a community college counselor and professor, teaching courses on health, psychology, social work, human sexuality, college success, AIDS and counseling. I have also raised two sons who are now 20 and 24. They both have the travel bug as well. I am a member of Doctors without Borders and Human Rights Watch. In 1979 I moved to Berkeley, California to attend graduate school at U.C. Berkeley. Several important experiences happened during and after my graduate studies. These projects had a profound affect on my later humanitarian work:

• Spent a year as a psychology intern at a local hospital working with terminally ill & dying cancer patients, families & medical personnel.
• Organized a group of 100 young adolescents to do volunteer work with the elderly, homeless, and other needy populations.
• Worked on a federally funded clinical research project to study ways to help heroin addicts to become drug-free.
• Conducted research with melanoma patients trying to discover links between emotion, psychological attitudes and survival from cancer.
• Ran workshops for the International Health Program in Santa Cruz, California and Walden House Drug Treatment in San Francisco.
  
• Developed the first AIDS counseling and testing program in California in 1984-85, shortly after the HIV test was approved.

I have spent years mentoring many young people both in the U.S. and abroad, encouraging them to do their own projects based on the 100 Friends model. Some of them have already done so.

Why do I do this work? It’s really simple. Years ago I asked myself the question: What do I know for sure? I wished I could give a spiritual, religious or philosophical answer, but I couldn’t find an answer that I really felt with any conviction. The one conviction I do have is that the poverty and need I saw with my own eyes in Third World countries is the most real phenomenon I have ever witnessed. Nobody could ever convince me that this is not real.

So I decided to go create my own meaning. This work brings meaning to my life. I know it benefits those I have reached through my work. If I can die knowing I have been able to help some needy fellow human beings, then that is enough for me.