Interview
Jamie from TWLOHA
- Author:
- Review Date:
- 12/06/2007
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS is a non-profit organization that was started by Jamie Tworkowski. TWLOHA is dedicated to presenting hope to people who struggle with depression, addiction and sucide. The organization was created also to invest into treatment and recovery; to inspire and to inform others about these issues. We caught up with Jamie at the Victory Records tour in Hollywood to have a chat and talking about the cause.
Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Jamie Tworkowski and I’m the founder of To Write Love On Her Arms.
Can you explain what TWLOHA is and how it began?
It grew out of a story and the story is basically about five days that I spent with a girl named Renee back in February of 2006. I met her through a mutual friend. When I met her she needed a lot of help. She had struggled with depression, addiction, self injury- I met her a few months after a suicide attempt. She was denied entry into a treatment center the morning after I met her. She spent the next five days with some friends and myself. Half way through that time I asked her what she thought about telling her story and expected her to say no but she loved the possibility that maybe other people could find hope in her story and maybe there could be purpose in her pain.
She went to treatment, from there we wrote the story, printed t-shirts, made a myspace, just to try to give it a home and people just started to respond saying they needed help or they wanted to share things they had been through. People had questions; some didn’t know about the issues, others had lost loved ones from suicide. From then to now it has grown and grown in terms to the amount of messages we receive and I just tried to serve as a first step to help, try to encourage people, try to talk about the issues and the reality of the issues and then try to invest in treatment and recovery financially through other different organizations. That’s kind of the basics.
Why was Renee denied treatment?
It was a smaller facility, this one in particular, and they didn’t have a detox element. She had drugs in her system and a fresh wound on her arm so because of those two things she was too high risk and from what we can tell, it was more because it was a smaller treatment system.
They didn’t have all the resources to help her?
Yeah.
Ten years ago, did you ever think you were going to be doing something like this?
No. Ten years ago I was in high school and I was seventeen. I really wanted to be a surf rep, like a sales rep, and that’s what I ended up doing. That’s what I was doing when this started; I was a sales rep for Hurley in Florida and prior to that I was with quicksilver for four years so I had my foot in the door that I'd always wanted to be in. As this happened, I started to realize that this felt really important. It felt like the opportunity to bring my heart to work everyday and do something that felt really meaningful. Ten years ago I definitely wasn’t a guy who grew up wanting to run a non-profit even two years ago I would have never guessed anything like that.
It’s pretty cool that you're doing it now and your heart is so into it. I think it’s awesome.
I think there is some freedom in it too because it's not what I always wanted to do, there is a kind of a sense that we get to lead it in a way where we hopefully throw out the rule book. We get to be creative, try to be poetic, try to inspire people and I think we didn’t want to do something that didn’t look like everything else. I think that has a lot to do with why it’s going so well.
Music- you are using bands and musicians to help you promote it. How did you go about deciding to do that because we all know music is such a powerful thing.
It happened really naturally. Some of the first guys to wear the t-shirts were friends that played in bands. My friend Jon Foreman who plays in a band called Switchfoot and the guys from Anberlin were some of the first people anywhere to wear the shirts. It was really because of the friendships that existed before this. I think so much has grown out of relationships and we’ve been able to get to know friends of those bands and we’ve met bands from being on the road; this summer we were on Warped Tour and made a bunch of new friends.
I think what you said is the heart of it, that we believe music is important, it’s powerful and people find hope in it. I can look back on really difficult seasons and remember some of the songs that helped get me through that. We don’t see bands as a marketing vehicle and we really believe in the heart they create. We also see the value in them being able to use their voice for things bigger then themselves.
Outside of music, what else are you doing to raise awareness?
At the heart of it, it’s not about music. We believe music is important, but really it’s about hope. We have opportunities to speak at colleges, high schools, churches and conferences. Really, these are issues that affect all different kinds of people; some people that love music, maybe some people that don’t. It affects rich and poor, black and white, young and old, obviously our audience is for the most part young- high school and college, some younger, some older. We also know beyond our audience that these are things that people in their forty and fifties deal with as well. We want to create something that is inviting, inclusive, and really welcoming, not anything that is exclusive.
A lot of things are really good at building fences and we would rather see some come down I guess. I think those are the first things that come to mind. Then defiantly through the Internet we talk about the bands that we like, the relationships we have and the tours that we’re apart of but I think there are a lot of people who love what we are doing that don’t love it just because of the music connection. I think they hopefully find something true in it, more then anything find hope and help in it. I think music will always be an ingredient but I think it’s not the focus.
There are so many broken people out in the world, and most hide it, how can we bring more awareness, so these people can seek help and not feel scared to do so?
People need to know that they are not alone. It’s estimated that 2 out of 3 people that deal with depression walk through it alone and they don’t get help. It points to confusion, the shame and the stigma that’s associated with these things. It’s estimated that 19 million people in America alone struggle with depression. That just screams that people are alone and yet they feel alone because these are things people don’t talk about.
In the face of some really hard numbers, we’ve learned there is a lot of hope and these things are very treatable. We have seen so much value in community in the idea that people need other people, we weren’t meant to do life alone and we really encourage that and we encourage people to be honest. Maybe the first step for someone is to talk to a friend or maybe a parent or when things are really intense or really dark, that the first step is maybe a counselor, entering a treatment, or calling a suicide hotline, but we just want to encourage people to take that first step, whatever that means.
Do you think society as a whole has caused some of people's depression because of the way we are: sex, violence and other things like that.
Yeah. I think with the stigma, which is such a big part of it, we get used to things for being a certain way. It kind of snowballs and grows and grows so these things have been for so many years, going back to when we were kids, these were things we just don’t talk about. Then years go by and these things are defiantly you don’t talk about.
You look at the world and there is brokenness all around. I almost ran out of gas and I was trying to find gas in downtown LA last night and I was really scared. I was thinking about that brokenness, being in a place that felt scary and thinking about what would have happened if I ran out of gas and this isn’t in some other country, this is in America, a city that I am staying in. You look at the war, divorce and cancer, all these really difficult things that happen on this planet, I’m not an expect but its pretty easy to look around and see a lot of pain. I think that pain is probably the biggest thing, the common threat. I don’t think that every single person responds to what we do or is moved by what we do necessarily struggle with these issues specifically, not everyone has hurt themselves or considered that but everyone can relate to pain and relate to difficult seasons, things that we loose, things that we mourn, and questions that we live with. In that sense that its all around us.
In a way we are trying to be really honest about that and in the face of it we also are trying to be really honest and excited about the hope as well. I think people appreciate both and that people need to know it's okay to talk about both.
Recently, you have had meetings with record labels about making a TWLOHA compilation CD. What can we expect from the CD and have you picked a label yet?
We haven’t yet. We have had a few conversations. We’ve talked to Tooth and Nail, Fuel by Ramen, and Universal and it's something we are committed to. We are definitely committed to the idea, I think we are taking our time because we believe in it so much; we want to do it right.
We have so many relationships in places, so many of these bands are our friends and we believe in them and it seems like they believe in us. I think it’s the matter of finding the right home and then also it could be a tour to raise money for what we’re doing. Yeah, it's an exciting time but more than anything to me, it would be great if we could raise some money but my biggest excitement is not the money, it’s the idea of trying to create something really special, really hopeful, that you can make a record that you can hand to someone who is hurting and we can really feel good about that.
Also you guys are looking at shoes to make. TOM shoes to be specific. What are they?
I don’t know a lot about them. They are pretty simple slip ons, I want to say canvas but I’m not sure. Basically they are slip-ons and the thing that is amazing about TOMS is every time they sell a pair, they give a pair to a child in a third world country.
That’s awesome.
Yeah, so if they sell 10,000 shoes that’s 10,000 kids somewhere that is getting a pair of shoes. We have connected with them, and have been talking about doing a shoe and so we’re just figuring out what the design is going to look at, but its something we’re excited about.
Im going to have to go buy a pair now.
To me, it’s exciting because not only does it help the work we are doing, which is not exclusive to the US but primarily in the US, it's cool to think it will help us and help people in other parts of the world.
You posted a bulletin a little while back about starting a book club and to read “Perks of Being a Wallflower”, which happens to be one of my favorite books.
Yeah, im reading it right now.
Do you like it?
Yeah I do, I really do. Its funny because I just kept hearing about it. I didn’t know what to expect. It was a book that just kept coming up, like where people just kept saying ‘you need to read this’. It’s really honest and I think it’s really beautiful. The main character whose voice you hear primarily is really innocent. With that honesty it’s also painful at times because he is being straight up on things. It surprised me in some ways, and in some ways it brings me back to when I was younger, because it was set in high school but I think it applies to the grown up years as well.
Are you going to try to start something on MySpace so the supporters can read along with you?
Yeah, it's kind of funny because I'm the guy who is reading a paragraph at two in the morning and says ‘lets start a book club’ but there is more to it than that. Thankfully we have people around us that ask the smart questions like ‘what is it that we need to do to start a book club?’ I kind of jumped the gun on it but it's okay because I'm in a place where I can.
I know a lot of people who have read it. I was on your site and someone asked what the book was so I emailed them and told them and also to let me know what they think of it. Hopefully they will.
It’s a quick read.
It took me a day.
Are you serious?
I sat and read it the whole day.
That’s a good part of the day though. I actually have slowed down a bit so I need to get back into it. We believe in our music, books and we talk a lot about music and people make that connection. So to me, I think books can be really powerful, the writing can be really powerful. I love the idea of people feeling united- imagine everyone reading this book at the same time and to think that some kid in Kansas City, who normally feels alone, is aware that maybe there is a couple other thousand people reading the same thing and thinking the same thing. I think there is just something healthy and hopeful about that, then obviously creating a place where people can talk about those things.
So you haven’t finished the book yet?
No, I’ve been really busy the last few days; I’ve just been going slow. Also I’m easily distracted too. It’s in my backpack all the time, but I'll find other work to do or something.
Who are some people that you look up to and/or inspire you?
Don Miller is one; he is an author who wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. He’s really a hero of mine. I read that book and not only did it give me hope to be a reader but it really made me want to write for the first time. I love how honest it was. He talked about really simple common things like friendship, travel, relationships, community and it made those things feel really important, even the friendships I had in my life, I think its a lot of things people over look. That’s a book that really means a lot to me. Jon Foreman from Switchfoot is a good friend who I really look up to, Dustin Kensrue from Thrice, and Aaron Gillespie is a good friend from Underoath /The Almost. Bono is my favorite, he is my hero. I’m a huge fan of Johnny Cash, I think his story is amazing. I think the common threat in all of those is those were people who had an awareness of pain, like sensitivity to it, but were also able to communicate things that were beautiful, things that were hopeful in the face of that. You really got both. I think a lot of the time you get one and not the other and I think both are really powerful. Those are a few. There is a speaker named Rob Bell, he is another guy- that’s kind of the short list.
2007 is almost ending, have you reached your goal of raising $100,000?
I think in retrospect, its funny, because we set that goal in regards to money we would give away and a lot has changed since then. I think we are close, I think we have a shot at it. This month is really important and then next month with the holidays. I think we have a shot at it but its tricky because I really believe in all the work that we do and some people when they hear non-profit they can only think or talk about the money we send to other organizations. When we pay a team of people to respond, we get almost a thousand messages a week on myspace and email, to me, there is an element of counseling and treatment to that, so I have no problem with the fact that we pay some of those people for their time. Its just as significant as sending that amount of money somewhere else or realizing that there is traveling involved in the tour or things like that.
We have some opportunities that are being done in a really unique way, so to me it’s exciting to invest in those things. We just rented a house in Florida, a hundred year old bungalow, which has now become our office. It's allowing guys to come and live there and to intern with us. That’s money that is really well spent because these are guys that really want to pour their lives into the work that were doing. With all that said, I think we will be close. In a way we are trying to do something unique and it takes kind of educated people on the fact that some people are only interested in ‘how much money did you give to teen challenge’, and to me its like, we think Warped Tour is important, we think MySpace is important and we believe in all of it. I think it’s about hope and hope is a lot bigger than writing checks. There’s a lot more to it.
What are your plans for TWLOHA for 2008?
I feel like we are just getting started really. In a lot of cases we have taken some of the first steps with a lot of the things we are doing. We really believe in introducing the element of live help. I’m not sure if we will manage it or we will point to a third party but just where people can connect with other people who are qualified to speak about the things they are going through. I think that is something we are really committed to.
I think simple things like the street team where we have had people sign up but we really haven’t had a great system, we haven’t known what to do with it so we are working with fancorp to start that. Message boards, we have never had that and MySpace is just comments and messages, so it's not that organized, so we will introduce a message board soon. I think that will play a part in stuff like the book club where we want to create a place for conversations. We also love the chances like nights like tonight, where we get to turn off the computer and meet people face to face. We had a great time on the Warped Tour and we didn’t know what to expect and it was incredible. We want it to be bigger and better next summer. We are talking about having counselors out there next summer and we are getting more opportunities to speak to colleges, which is exciting.
We want to have a lot more of everything, especially a lot more resources there. We are committed to presenting more content. Renee who I wrote the story about is going to start getting more involved. We are speaking at Pepperdine the first week of December and she will be out there for that. I think you will start to hear from her more, in speaking settings and some of her writing as well. I think her perspective is really special and significant, not just because she is the girl the story is about but I think its because it’s a girl who has been there and her perspective is different than mine, she is someone who has really walked through these things.
Would you mind sharing a story about someone who has emailed you or talked to you?
Yeah there are a couple that usually come to mind. One is simple. It’s kind of funny because it involved a t-shirt. A girl was wearing one of our shirts and she ran into a friend at a park near where they lived and her friend who wasn’t wearing the shirt had been sitting in the park and asked what her shirt was about. The other friend shared and talked about what TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS was. It turned out over the course of that conversation that the friend had been planning on taking her life that night and because of that conversation, she chose not to. Not to say that it was that simple and all better but it was a first step in a different direction. That meant a lot to me and was so surprising that that could come from a t-shirt with funny words on it. That’s one that’s exciting, and then I had an encounter with a guy at warped tour in Dallas. I wrote about it on the site but it was just a guy who looked like a punk rock kid, he had studs on his jacket and didn’t look like most of the people we run into. He looked a bit tougher. I could tell right away that he was hurting, his eyes filled up with tears and he talked about how he could relate to the story because someone he loved was dealing with these things. You could tell he was really holding on to it and was feeling the weight of that. We had a long conversation and talked about letting go and forgiving ourselves. I was dealing with some of the same things so I think that’s part of why it meant so much to me. That was one that I think was really memorable and then I heard from him about two weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, and it was the first time that he just shared that he was doing a lot better. I encouraged him to go check out The Almost that day and he did-I don’t think he had ever heard them before. We talked about the song "Amazing Because It Is" and I told him it was a song that was really getting me through the tour and he ended up seeing them that day and sharing to me about how much it meant. That was one I really liked.
What's the best way our Bandnation readers can help support TWLOHA?
The websites are really home base for us. The myspace, which is www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms and then the website which is the acronym which is TWLOHA.com. If you go there you can donate, you can buy a t-shirt - there is link to the online store. You can join the street team, which will very soon finally mean something. That’s just the best way to stay in touch, in hearing updates, reading the blogs and seeing what’s next.
I think beyond us so much of it has happened really naturally with friends telling their friends and people using whatever influence they have, ether its friends telling friends at school or people posting bulletins on myspace or adding us to their top friends, those things matter. Then a guy like Anthony [Bayside singer] who plays in a rock band and says ‘hey why don’t you come on tour and speak before we go on’ and so I think it’s whatever stages we have. People have been generous so we just encourage people to be creative and use whatever influence they have. It's easy to feel small and feel like your voice doesn’t count but I think the reality is that it does, even if its something as simple as a bake sale or garage sale. There are all sort of things, but more than that, I think those things help promote us and the things we are doing. We just love the idea of people encouraging what it means to love the people around them, especially the people who are hurting and learn about these issues. These are things that take a little bit of homework because we don’t learn about these things at school. I grew up going to church and I didn’t hear about it there. We just want to encourage people to get informed and really learn about the need that is out there and the hope that is out there as well.
Can you introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Jamie Tworkowski and I’m the founder of To Write Love On Her Arms.
Can you explain what TWLOHA is and how it began?
It grew out of a story and the story is basically about five days that I spent with a girl named Renee back in February of 2006. I met her through a mutual friend. When I met her she needed a lot of help. She had struggled with depression, addiction, self injury- I met her a few months after a suicide attempt. She was denied entry into a treatment center the morning after I met her. She spent the next five days with some friends and myself. Half way through that time I asked her what she thought about telling her story and expected her to say no but she loved the possibility that maybe other people could find hope in her story and maybe there could be purpose in her pain.
She went to treatment, from there we wrote the story, printed t-shirts, made a myspace, just to try to give it a home and people just started to respond saying they needed help or they wanted to share things they had been through. People had questions; some didn’t know about the issues, others had lost loved ones from suicide. From then to now it has grown and grown in terms to the amount of messages we receive and I just tried to serve as a first step to help, try to encourage people, try to talk about the issues and the reality of the issues and then try to invest in treatment and recovery financially through other different organizations. That’s kind of the basics.
Why was Renee denied treatment?
It was a smaller facility, this one in particular, and they didn’t have a detox element. She had drugs in her system and a fresh wound on her arm so because of those two things she was too high risk and from what we can tell, it was more because it was a smaller treatment system.
They didn’t have all the resources to help her?
Yeah.
Ten years ago, did you ever think you were going to be doing something like this?
No. Ten years ago I was in high school and I was seventeen. I really wanted to be a surf rep, like a sales rep, and that’s what I ended up doing. That’s what I was doing when this started; I was a sales rep for Hurley in Florida and prior to that I was with quicksilver for four years so I had my foot in the door that I'd always wanted to be in. As this happened, I started to realize that this felt really important. It felt like the opportunity to bring my heart to work everyday and do something that felt really meaningful. Ten years ago I definitely wasn’t a guy who grew up wanting to run a non-profit even two years ago I would have never guessed anything like that.
It’s pretty cool that you're doing it now and your heart is so into it. I think it’s awesome.
I think there is some freedom in it too because it's not what I always wanted to do, there is a kind of a sense that we get to lead it in a way where we hopefully throw out the rule book. We get to be creative, try to be poetic, try to inspire people and I think we didn’t want to do something that didn’t look like everything else. I think that has a lot to do with why it’s going so well.
Music- you are using bands and musicians to help you promote it. How did you go about deciding to do that because we all know music is such a powerful thing.
It happened really naturally. Some of the first guys to wear the t-shirts were friends that played in bands. My friend Jon Foreman who plays in a band called Switchfoot and the guys from Anberlin were some of the first people anywhere to wear the shirts. It was really because of the friendships that existed before this. I think so much has grown out of relationships and we’ve been able to get to know friends of those bands and we’ve met bands from being on the road; this summer we were on Warped Tour and made a bunch of new friends.
I think what you said is the heart of it, that we believe music is important, it’s powerful and people find hope in it. I can look back on really difficult seasons and remember some of the songs that helped get me through that. We don’t see bands as a marketing vehicle and we really believe in the heart they create. We also see the value in them being able to use their voice for things bigger then themselves.
Outside of music, what else are you doing to raise awareness?
At the heart of it, it’s not about music. We believe music is important, but really it’s about hope. We have opportunities to speak at colleges, high schools, churches and conferences. Really, these are issues that affect all different kinds of people; some people that love music, maybe some people that don’t. It affects rich and poor, black and white, young and old, obviously our audience is for the most part young- high school and college, some younger, some older. We also know beyond our audience that these are things that people in their forty and fifties deal with as well. We want to create something that is inviting, inclusive, and really welcoming, not anything that is exclusive.
A lot of things are really good at building fences and we would rather see some come down I guess. I think those are the first things that come to mind. Then defiantly through the Internet we talk about the bands that we like, the relationships we have and the tours that we’re apart of but I think there are a lot of people who love what we are doing that don’t love it just because of the music connection. I think they hopefully find something true in it, more then anything find hope and help in it. I think music will always be an ingredient but I think it’s not the focus.
There are so many broken people out in the world, and most hide it, how can we bring more awareness, so these people can seek help and not feel scared to do so?
People need to know that they are not alone. It’s estimated that 2 out of 3 people that deal with depression walk through it alone and they don’t get help. It points to confusion, the shame and the stigma that’s associated with these things. It’s estimated that 19 million people in America alone struggle with depression. That just screams that people are alone and yet they feel alone because these are things people don’t talk about.
In the face of some really hard numbers, we’ve learned there is a lot of hope and these things are very treatable. We have seen so much value in community in the idea that people need other people, we weren’t meant to do life alone and we really encourage that and we encourage people to be honest. Maybe the first step for someone is to talk to a friend or maybe a parent or when things are really intense or really dark, that the first step is maybe a counselor, entering a treatment, or calling a suicide hotline, but we just want to encourage people to take that first step, whatever that means.
Do you think society as a whole has caused some of people's depression because of the way we are: sex, violence and other things like that.
Yeah. I think with the stigma, which is such a big part of it, we get used to things for being a certain way. It kind of snowballs and grows and grows so these things have been for so many years, going back to when we were kids, these were things we just don’t talk about. Then years go by and these things are defiantly you don’t talk about.
You look at the world and there is brokenness all around. I almost ran out of gas and I was trying to find gas in downtown LA last night and I was really scared. I was thinking about that brokenness, being in a place that felt scary and thinking about what would have happened if I ran out of gas and this isn’t in some other country, this is in America, a city that I am staying in. You look at the war, divorce and cancer, all these really difficult things that happen on this planet, I’m not an expect but its pretty easy to look around and see a lot of pain. I think that pain is probably the biggest thing, the common threat. I don’t think that every single person responds to what we do or is moved by what we do necessarily struggle with these issues specifically, not everyone has hurt themselves or considered that but everyone can relate to pain and relate to difficult seasons, things that we loose, things that we mourn, and questions that we live with. In that sense that its all around us.
In a way we are trying to be really honest about that and in the face of it we also are trying to be really honest and excited about the hope as well. I think people appreciate both and that people need to know it's okay to talk about both.
Recently, you have had meetings with record labels about making a TWLOHA compilation CD. What can we expect from the CD and have you picked a label yet?
We haven’t yet. We have had a few conversations. We’ve talked to Tooth and Nail, Fuel by Ramen, and Universal and it's something we are committed to. We are definitely committed to the idea, I think we are taking our time because we believe in it so much; we want to do it right.
We have so many relationships in places, so many of these bands are our friends and we believe in them and it seems like they believe in us. I think it’s the matter of finding the right home and then also it could be a tour to raise money for what we’re doing. Yeah, it's an exciting time but more than anything to me, it would be great if we could raise some money but my biggest excitement is not the money, it’s the idea of trying to create something really special, really hopeful, that you can make a record that you can hand to someone who is hurting and we can really feel good about that.
Also you guys are looking at shoes to make. TOM shoes to be specific. What are they?
I don’t know a lot about them. They are pretty simple slip ons, I want to say canvas but I’m not sure. Basically they are slip-ons and the thing that is amazing about TOMS is every time they sell a pair, they give a pair to a child in a third world country.
That’s awesome.
Yeah, so if they sell 10,000 shoes that’s 10,000 kids somewhere that is getting a pair of shoes. We have connected with them, and have been talking about doing a shoe and so we’re just figuring out what the design is going to look at, but its something we’re excited about.
Im going to have to go buy a pair now.
To me, it’s exciting because not only does it help the work we are doing, which is not exclusive to the US but primarily in the US, it's cool to think it will help us and help people in other parts of the world.
You posted a bulletin a little while back about starting a book club and to read “Perks of Being a Wallflower”, which happens to be one of my favorite books.
Yeah, im reading it right now.
Do you like it?
Yeah I do, I really do. Its funny because I just kept hearing about it. I didn’t know what to expect. It was a book that just kept coming up, like where people just kept saying ‘you need to read this’. It’s really honest and I think it’s really beautiful. The main character whose voice you hear primarily is really innocent. With that honesty it’s also painful at times because he is being straight up on things. It surprised me in some ways, and in some ways it brings me back to when I was younger, because it was set in high school but I think it applies to the grown up years as well.
Are you going to try to start something on MySpace so the supporters can read along with you?
Yeah, it's kind of funny because I'm the guy who is reading a paragraph at two in the morning and says ‘lets start a book club’ but there is more to it than that. Thankfully we have people around us that ask the smart questions like ‘what is it that we need to do to start a book club?’ I kind of jumped the gun on it but it's okay because I'm in a place where I can.
I know a lot of people who have read it. I was on your site and someone asked what the book was so I emailed them and told them and also to let me know what they think of it. Hopefully they will.
It’s a quick read.
It took me a day.
Are you serious?
I sat and read it the whole day.
That’s a good part of the day though. I actually have slowed down a bit so I need to get back into it. We believe in our music, books and we talk a lot about music and people make that connection. So to me, I think books can be really powerful, the writing can be really powerful. I love the idea of people feeling united- imagine everyone reading this book at the same time and to think that some kid in Kansas City, who normally feels alone, is aware that maybe there is a couple other thousand people reading the same thing and thinking the same thing. I think there is just something healthy and hopeful about that, then obviously creating a place where people can talk about those things.
So you haven’t finished the book yet?
No, I’ve been really busy the last few days; I’ve just been going slow. Also I’m easily distracted too. It’s in my backpack all the time, but I'll find other work to do or something.
Who are some people that you look up to and/or inspire you?
Don Miller is one; he is an author who wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz. He’s really a hero of mine. I read that book and not only did it give me hope to be a reader but it really made me want to write for the first time. I love how honest it was. He talked about really simple common things like friendship, travel, relationships, community and it made those things feel really important, even the friendships I had in my life, I think its a lot of things people over look. That’s a book that really means a lot to me. Jon Foreman from Switchfoot is a good friend who I really look up to, Dustin Kensrue from Thrice, and Aaron Gillespie is a good friend from Underoath /The Almost. Bono is my favorite, he is my hero. I’m a huge fan of Johnny Cash, I think his story is amazing. I think the common threat in all of those is those were people who had an awareness of pain, like sensitivity to it, but were also able to communicate things that were beautiful, things that were hopeful in the face of that. You really got both. I think a lot of the time you get one and not the other and I think both are really powerful. Those are a few. There is a speaker named Rob Bell, he is another guy- that’s kind of the short list.
2007 is almost ending, have you reached your goal of raising $100,000?
I think in retrospect, its funny, because we set that goal in regards to money we would give away and a lot has changed since then. I think we are close, I think we have a shot at it. This month is really important and then next month with the holidays. I think we have a shot at it but its tricky because I really believe in all the work that we do and some people when they hear non-profit they can only think or talk about the money we send to other organizations. When we pay a team of people to respond, we get almost a thousand messages a week on myspace and email, to me, there is an element of counseling and treatment to that, so I have no problem with the fact that we pay some of those people for their time. Its just as significant as sending that amount of money somewhere else or realizing that there is traveling involved in the tour or things like that.
We have some opportunities that are being done in a really unique way, so to me it’s exciting to invest in those things. We just rented a house in Florida, a hundred year old bungalow, which has now become our office. It's allowing guys to come and live there and to intern with us. That’s money that is really well spent because these are guys that really want to pour their lives into the work that were doing. With all that said, I think we will be close. In a way we are trying to do something unique and it takes kind of educated people on the fact that some people are only interested in ‘how much money did you give to teen challenge’, and to me its like, we think Warped Tour is important, we think MySpace is important and we believe in all of it. I think it’s about hope and hope is a lot bigger than writing checks. There’s a lot more to it.
What are your plans for TWLOHA for 2008?
I feel like we are just getting started really. In a lot of cases we have taken some of the first steps with a lot of the things we are doing. We really believe in introducing the element of live help. I’m not sure if we will manage it or we will point to a third party but just where people can connect with other people who are qualified to speak about the things they are going through. I think that is something we are really committed to.
I think simple things like the street team where we have had people sign up but we really haven’t had a great system, we haven’t known what to do with it so we are working with fancorp to start that. Message boards, we have never had that and MySpace is just comments and messages, so it's not that organized, so we will introduce a message board soon. I think that will play a part in stuff like the book club where we want to create a place for conversations. We also love the chances like nights like tonight, where we get to turn off the computer and meet people face to face. We had a great time on the Warped Tour and we didn’t know what to expect and it was incredible. We want it to be bigger and better next summer. We are talking about having counselors out there next summer and we are getting more opportunities to speak to colleges, which is exciting.
We want to have a lot more of everything, especially a lot more resources there. We are committed to presenting more content. Renee who I wrote the story about is going to start getting more involved. We are speaking at Pepperdine the first week of December and she will be out there for that. I think you will start to hear from her more, in speaking settings and some of her writing as well. I think her perspective is really special and significant, not just because she is the girl the story is about but I think its because it’s a girl who has been there and her perspective is different than mine, she is someone who has really walked through these things.
Would you mind sharing a story about someone who has emailed you or talked to you?
Yeah there are a couple that usually come to mind. One is simple. It’s kind of funny because it involved a t-shirt. A girl was wearing one of our shirts and she ran into a friend at a park near where they lived and her friend who wasn’t wearing the shirt had been sitting in the park and asked what her shirt was about. The other friend shared and talked about what TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS was. It turned out over the course of that conversation that the friend had been planning on taking her life that night and because of that conversation, she chose not to. Not to say that it was that simple and all better but it was a first step in a different direction. That meant a lot to me and was so surprising that that could come from a t-shirt with funny words on it. That’s one that’s exciting, and then I had an encounter with a guy at warped tour in Dallas. I wrote about it on the site but it was just a guy who looked like a punk rock kid, he had studs on his jacket and didn’t look like most of the people we run into. He looked a bit tougher. I could tell right away that he was hurting, his eyes filled up with tears and he talked about how he could relate to the story because someone he loved was dealing with these things. You could tell he was really holding on to it and was feeling the weight of that. We had a long conversation and talked about letting go and forgiving ourselves. I was dealing with some of the same things so I think that’s part of why it meant so much to me. That was one that I think was really memorable and then I heard from him about two weeks ago, maybe ten days ago, and it was the first time that he just shared that he was doing a lot better. I encouraged him to go check out The Almost that day and he did-I don’t think he had ever heard them before. We talked about the song "Amazing Because It Is" and I told him it was a song that was really getting me through the tour and he ended up seeing them that day and sharing to me about how much it meant. That was one I really liked.
What's the best way our Bandnation readers can help support TWLOHA?
The websites are really home base for us. The myspace, which is www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms and then the website which is the acronym which is TWLOHA.com. If you go there you can donate, you can buy a t-shirt - there is link to the online store. You can join the street team, which will very soon finally mean something. That’s just the best way to stay in touch, in hearing updates, reading the blogs and seeing what’s next.
I think beyond us so much of it has happened really naturally with friends telling their friends and people using whatever influence they have, ether its friends telling friends at school or people posting bulletins on myspace or adding us to their top friends, those things matter. Then a guy like Anthony [Bayside singer] who plays in a rock band and says ‘hey why don’t you come on tour and speak before we go on’ and so I think it’s whatever stages we have. People have been generous so we just encourage people to be creative and use whatever influence they have. It's easy to feel small and feel like your voice doesn’t count but I think the reality is that it does, even if its something as simple as a bake sale or garage sale. There are all sort of things, but more than that, I think those things help promote us and the things we are doing. We just love the idea of people encouraging what it means to love the people around them, especially the people who are hurting and learn about these issues. These are things that take a little bit of homework because we don’t learn about these things at school. I grew up going to church and I didn’t hear about it there. We just want to encourage people to get informed and really learn about the need that is out there and the hope that is out there as well.