Why does a driver need to learn how to handle a video camera? Why should a helper learn sign language? What does a director need to learn photography for? Why should anyone learn yoga or how to dance?

In many organizations, training opportunities are limited to professional staff and directly related to their specific areas of work.

At the Foundation, we try not to be so narrow minded. We believe strongly that the more varied our skills, the more creative we will be as human beings. We encourage our staff to pursue a wide range of skills because we think it makes them happier and more interesting as people.

So if we meet someone interesting who happens to have a useful or a fascinating area of expertise, we ask him to do us a workshop and we make it open for anyone who’d like to attend. We have had people talk to us about counseling, photography, stress reduction and earthquake safety. We have learned to make our own paper, bake bread and brownies, decorate cakes and paint with watercolors. It’s a wide-open world and we want to be a part of it in as many ways as we can.