Kim Shepard
Melinda Gates: The mom behind the magnanimity
October 27, 2015
"One of the most important things is to understand what you stand for in the world, to play that out both in your own family life and what you do and choose to do with your time in the world."
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In a modest corner office, a smiling Melinda Gates stoop up from a small round table, taking a break from looking over a stack of papers to give me a warm welcome as we met for our conversation at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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She and Bill knew, even before they were married, that whatever success they might have in life would not just benefit their family. It would create equality for people all over the world.
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But, where do you start?
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"Once Bill and I said that we really, really believed that all lives have equal value on the planet, then you start to look at where are the enormous pockets of poverty? And where are all lives not treated as having equal value?" Melinda explained.
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While she has a lifetime to dedicate to the world, her children will only be young for a short time. Melinda wanted to spend several years focusing entirely on her family.
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After nine years as a Microsoft executive, Melinda became pregnant with her oldest daughter, Jennifer, and decided to become a full time mother.
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"I felt like the kids deserved to have some privacy as they grew up and to have a mom who was very involved," said Melinda.
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The Gates now have three children. Jennifer is away at college. Their son, Rory, is 16 years old and a sophomore in high school. Phoebe is 13 years old and in 7th grade.
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Melinda always maintained a foothold in her non-profit work, but it was several years after the kids were born she felt she could once again dedicate herself to her foundation on a full-time basis.
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That doesn't mean she's not still a full-time mom.
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"I was home with the kids most of the weekend, then I went off to a big maternal and child health conference for 36 hours. I was back at the soccer game yesterday," Melinda recounted.
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One of the priorities in the Gates home is family dinners.
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"Bill and I try very hard to be home for dinner. We have many, many family meals. In fact, probably my 13-year-old, Phoebe, would tell you too many family meals," she laughed.
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Imparting their philanthropic ideals on their children is something Melinda and Bill hope to achieve, but she said it's not their focus at dinner time. Those conversations always start with the kids.
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"It's always about what their day was like, what did they do during the day, what are they thinking about, how did the soccer game go, how's homework going?"
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Although, as the kids get older, Melinda said more and more often they do talk about global topics like AIDS and the refugee crisis.
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With great wealth comes great responsibility. That's an idea Melinda has thought about since the day she married Bill. It came up with she had a conversation with her mother-in-law about their future as a couple.
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At times, Melinda said, it can seem daunting. But, she learned to focus on the progress in the developing world and other positive changes around her.
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"It keeps you working on this, and it also keeps you upbeat and optimistic. Because you see what's possible."
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Even the most kind and generous people have their critics. Like those who ask why the Gates don't do more to help cities and towns here in Washington that are struggling. Melinda said she is listening.
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"Sometimes they'll see something that we don't see about our own work. But, I also know that we're in the arena as a foundation doing our best (...) and I'd rather be out there daring and sometimes failing than not doing what we're doing."
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It has taken her a while to hear the criticism without getting discouraged.
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But, Melinda chooses to focus on the good, like the changes she's seeing in Ethiopia, a country that's been able to lift half of its population out of poverty and cut the infant mortality rate in half.
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It's that kind of change that keeps Melinda going at work. At home, it's the conversations she now has with her oldest daughter.
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"She's very clear about how close we are as a family, what are values are, how we thing about the world, and she says that to us often now. That's very rewarding."
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Heart Gallery
March 21, 2018
There's an exhibition going up at Crossroads Mall this week that’s been created and curated entirely by Bellevue high school students.
It’s called the Heart Gallery, which stands for “high-schoolers expressing art.” It’s the brainchild of a group of seniors at Big Picture School.
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“We started to notice that our art teacher would continue talking about not having enough resources or funds to buy us new materials,” explained Senior Bella Burckhardt. “We also noticed that our art wasn’t really going anywhere. Everyone at our school is making really amazing pieces and they were just sitting in the back of the classroom.”
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Bella’s passion is watercolors. Anjali Skilton loves photography. Victoria Helmer makes stained glass windows. All three are extremely well spoken. The group just recently returned from Austin, Texas, where they were selected to present their idea for the Heart Gallery at South by Southwest’s Young Entrepreneurs Conference.
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This is just the latest in a long list of accomplishments they’ve already racked up before they’ve even graduated from high school. It’s all due to the focus on internships and project based learning at Big Picture, which is both a middle and high school.
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From the classroom to Heart Gallery
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Each year the students have to identify an area of interest that they’ll focus on. Then, they spend every Thursday in the community rather than in the classroom.
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“There are a few requirements, but they don’t really feel like requirements,” Bella said. “They feel like things that will help you.”
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First, they have to identify a mentor. Then, they have to find a space to meet with their mentor. Finally, they have to identify a project that will benefit both the student and the organization they’re working with.
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Big Picture Advisor Kaarina Aufranc helps guide the internships and gets feedback on the student’s performance.
“They cannot believe that these kids are just kids, that they’re high school students,” Aufranc said. “I’ve heard it over and over and over again. They’re just so impressed with not just the quality of work, but the professionalism and the communication.”
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Bella, Victoria, and Anjali have had a variety of internships in the six years they’ve spent at Big Picture, including work at the Bellevue Arts Museum, the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, KBCS Radio, a start-up company on Mercer Island, and the Bellevue Schools Foundation.
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They’re now using all of that experience and their connections to open the Heart Gallery at Crossroads Mall.
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The art will be on display March 21 through April 4. All of the pieces will be available for purchase with proceeds returning to the arts programs in the Bellevue School District.
This year’s theme is the Pacific Northwest. And, hopefully, Heart Gallery will be back again next year.
“We’re hoping to package this up and pass it down to other high schoolers in our school who have internship opportunities,” Bella said. “It’s definitely something we want to continue, and continue to grow.”
Safe Horse Rescue
April 21, 2017
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When local animal rescue agencies find puppy mills it can fill up most of a shelter. But when the animals being rescued weigh thousands of pounds, it’s what you might call a horse of a different color.
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Bonnie Hammond started SAFE equine rescue about 10 years ago. At first, she and a friend were rescuing horses being sold at feed lots. But, that wasn’t really getting to the root of the problem.
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They wanted to stop the horses from getting into the slaughter pipeline in the first place, so they started working directly with animal control agencies in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties.
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"We want to be as supportive as we can and as available as we can so that when they see a situation where seizing a horse and prosecuting the owner for cruelty is warranted, that they’re as likely and encouraged to do so,” she said.
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Just a few months ago, SAFE found a new, bigger home on the outskirts of Redmond. The new space allows them to care for up to 28 animals.
But for SAFE, getting abused and neglected horses back to health is just the first step. They want to prepare the animals to be good “horse citizens” as Bonnie describes it. One of their recent success stories is Anderson, a chestnut Arabian stallion who had been abandoned in a field with a mare for so long the gates had rusted shut.
Bonnie says it took a professional trainer several hours just to get a halter on Anderson.
“That stallion was so feral and so wild that he immediately went into the you-are-not-taking-my-mare mode.”
After being gelded, and getting just a few months of care and training, Anderson is now ready for adoption.
“He transformed from this wild and crazy thing to an absolute sweetheart.”
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Not all of SAFE’s stories turn out so well. Last week, they got a call about a woman who wanted to voluntarily surrender her horse because she couldn’t care for it any longer.
“We were shocked at what we saw,” Hammond said. “The horse was extremely thin — hip bones protruding all her ribs, her shoulders. In addition to that, she had a breathing condition [that was] causing her to literally heave and struggle to take every breath.”
They immediately took the mare to a vet and began daily treatment for the breathing condition, hoping they wouldn’t have to turn to euthanasia. On Monday, as they came to check on her, they discovered she was unable to fight any longer.
“In some way, she saved us from having to make that choice by leaving on her own…” Hammond said.
Just a few days after they lost that horse, two more were being brought in to take her place from a Quarter Horse breeding operation in Snohomish County.
“They’re both actually beautiful horses, very well bred,” Hammond said.
She says careless breeding practices are one of the biggest reasons SAFE exists. Because mares almost never get spayed they’re always fertile. It takes just one ungelded male to do a whole lot of damage.
“And I don’t know what it is, but we deal with people who really shouldn’t own horses — they’re starving them or neglecting them — and for some bizarre reason a huge percentage of them have stallions.”
SAFE is holding their very first open house at their new home in Redmond on Sunday with a “Hunger Games” theme.
“Horses hunger for more than just food. They hunger for kindness. They hunger for safety. They hunger for friends,” Hammond said. “The work we do, we don’t do it in a vacuum. It’s done by a community of people. And so working together we can end hunger and get these horses on their way to better lives.”