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Hi everyone, welcome to the official BRIAN MCARTHUR uPlej homepage!
I would like to personally invite you to JOIN MY uPlej NETWORK so we can raise money for charities. By joining uPlej YOU can pick the charity of your choice and start raising money by inviting people to join your uPlej network. So click on the link above and join in!
Let me tell you a little about a few of the many important people in my life who influenced me to be charitable...
I have wonderful parents- Carl and Catherine McArthur. Generous, kind, and humble as can be. They have been the greatest examples of charitable giving in my life. From as early as I can remember, my parents were constantly volunteering their time and resources to our church, to our neighborhood, and to community projects. During a particularly bad hurricane season a few years ago, hurricane Ivan demolished our hometown in Florida. Power, water, and all utilities were knocked out citywide for days and weeks. There was my father, taking the reins, organizing food deliveries, providing water and suppies to as many people as we could help. He organized clean up crews and we worked days on end helping neighbors, friends, and just everyday people from our community because everyone was affected. Mom sweated and worked nonstop behind the scenes as well as on the "front lines" during this major disaster too. Thanks Mom and Dad for your never ending and selfless example!
My grandfather Raymond Church taught me valuable lessons of charity and service early on in my life by his example too. Grandpa spent his career protecting and saving lives as a firefighter. His life and career was and is a life of service to all those around him. Thank you Grandpa for taking me with you and teaching me early on in life to help with the less fortunate.
Dr. Jack Demos, MD and Bonnie Scavo, PA, took me on my first medical mission while I was a student in Pittsburgh. While I was on my plastic surgery rotation they invited me to go with them to South America. We traveled to a remote village in the jungle of Brazil where we were able to perform surgery on children with deformities. More than half of the surgeries were cleft lip and palate deformities. The procedures we did truly changed those kids lives. That trip was a major life changing experience for me. I knew that I wanted to be a part of many medical missions throughout my life. Thanks Dr. Demos and Bonnie for sharing your knowledge, skills, and talents with me and with so many of those less fortunate children (you can check them out at surgicorps.org)
Dr. David Morton, PhD., my long time friend deserves credit here too. Dave teaches Neurobiology and Anatomy to first and second year medical students at the University of Utah. He asked me to accompany him recently to the Amazon in Peru for a medical mission. He asked that I'd help teach the medical students about dermatology and tropical diseases while on the trip. I happily accepted and had the trip of a lifetime! We spent a week and a half with a group of medical students seeing patients in tiny remote villages throughout the deepest and the most remote parts of the Amazon. We were able to see and treat hundreds of patients. Dave puts in countless hours with the charity that helped organize our trip called The Hope Alliance (thehopealliance.org). Thanks Dave for being an awesome friend and a great example of charitable giving.
Jeff Crane, founder of uPlej. Jeff and I have been friends for many years and I just want to say thanks for creating such a cool and amazing organization.
I've chosen to support a couple of charities and spread the love around. My nephew has Autism and I asked my sister Amy which Autistic charity she felt comfortable supporting. She likes to support the local small charities that have helped kids in her community. I found a smaller charity that can really CHANGE A KID'S LIFE with Autism- and change a parent's life! The charity is called Surfers Healing and it's amazing. They sponsor a free camp especially for Autistic kids that is like no other.
Next, I've chosen to support the charity Nothing but Nets.net. We can SAVE A KID'S LIFE because Nothing but Nets.net will send mosquito nets to Africa that will protect against Malaria (Malaria is killing a child every 30 seconds of every day there-crazy!) As I was taking malaria pills and sleeping under mosquito nets in the jungles of Peru and Brazil, I kept thinking of all the poor kids world wide who didn't have any protection. Dang! Then I read an article in Sports Illustrated about journalist Rick Riley supporting this organization that sends nets to these kids. I knew I needed to help out here. Watch the short video below I posted about NOTHING but NETS.net (Click Here to read the article)
Please join my network and then invite your friends and loved ones to do the same. You'll feel great about it, I promise. Thanks for making a difference.
CLiCK HERE for Surfers Healing Autism Video on ESPN and then click the picture of the surfer on the right. (This 30 second "commercial" was filmed during one of the kids camps and gives you a little feel of what this wonderful group does)
(This next video is about a kid with Autism at the Surfers Healing Charity kids camp. I found it on YouTube and was seriously impressed. Warning, if you have a child with Autism or know someone who does it'll get the tears going!)
