Philanthropy is the effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations.
En aquestes sessions de cinema de nit que es multipliquen durant les vacances de Nadal, he vist "A la recerca de la felicitat", una pel·lícula conmovadora protagonitzada per Will Smith, actor que passa de la pura ficció al drama. La pel-lícula està basada en la vida d'un home que el definiria com un gran filàntrop: Chris Gardner.
From sleeping on the streets to Wall Street
(Fortune Magazine) -- In 1982, Chris Gardner was just another go-getter in the training program at Dean Witter's San Francisco office, making $1,000 a month. He was also homeless. Gardner couldn't afford both day care for his 20-month-old son, whom he was raising alone, and a place to live.
So for a year he and Chris Jr. slept where they could - cheap hotel rooms in West Oakland, a shelter at a church in the Tenderloin, under his office desk, even, on occasion, the bathroom at the Bay Area Rapid Transit MacArthur station.
So Gardner worked, making 200 calls a day to snag clients for Dean Witter. "Every time I picked up the phone," he recalls, "I knew I was getting closer to digging myself out of the hole." Within five years he had opened his own institutional brokerage firm in Chicago called Gardner Rich, which is still thriving today.
Then, in 2002, a story on local TV set in motion a series of events that will culminate with a movie based on his life, "The Pursuit of Happyness", hits the theaters, with Will Smith playing the lead role.
Chris Gardner is a philanthropist who sponsors many charitable organizations, primarily the Cara Program and the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, where he and his son received desperately-needed shelter. He has helped fund a US$50 million project in San Francisco that creates low-income housing and opportunities for employment in the area of the city where he was once homeless.
