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When an engaged couple calls off the wedding, it is usually a time of sadness and anger. But one family in Atlanta found a way to turn a terrible situation into a beautiful one. Carol and Willie Fowler’s daughter Tamara was set to get married at the Villa Christina catering hall, when the wedding was called off just 40 days before the event. Initially the Fowlers were upset to hear that the lavish gathering they had planned and paid for was not going to happen. Then they had a genius and generous idea: They invited 200 of the city’s homeless to feast on the four-course meal that would have been part of Tamara’s wedding reception. The Fowler family called Elizabeth Omilami from the Hosea Feed the Hungry organization for her help in getting the group together. At first Omilami thought she was being pranked! Carol Fowler said that even daughter Tamara attended the event, adding, “She was also very delighted to see and know that others had an opportunity to enjoy something, rather than just allow it to go to waste.” Children make up about 70 percent of Atlanta’s homeless, so to make the dinner more fun for them, a clown was hired for their entertainment. The event was titled “The First Annual Fowler Family Celebration of Love,” and the family says it plans on hosting another charity dinner next year. It’s a great example of how you can turn any bad situation into a positive one.

Article written by Mia Fitzharris

Scott Neeson’s final epiphany came one day in June 2004. The high-powered Hollywood executive stood, ankle deep in trash, at the sprawling landfill of Stung Meanchey, a poor shantytown in Cambodia’s capital.

Scott Neeson, a former head of 20th Century Fox International, cares for more than 1,000 Cambodian children and their families.

In a haze of toxic fumes and burning waste, swarms of Phnom Penh’s most destitute were rooting through refuse, jostling for scraps of recyclables in newly dumped loads of rubbish. They earned 4,000 riel ($1) a day – if they were lucky.

Many of the garbage sorters were young children. Covered in filthy rags, they were scruffy, sickly, and sad.

Clasped to Mr. Neeson’s ear was his cellphone. Calling the movie mogul from a US airport, a Hollywood superstar’s agent was complaining bitterly about inadequate in-flight entertainment on a private jet that Sony Pictures Entertainment, where Neeson was head of overseas theatrical releases, had provided for his client.

Neeson overheard the actor griping in the background. ” ‘My life wasn’t meant to be this difficult.’ Those were his exact words,” Neeson says. “I was standing there in that humid, stinking garbage dump with children sick with typhoid, and this guy was refusing to get on a Gulfstream IV because he couldn’t find a specific item onboard,” he recalls. “If I ever wanted validation I was doing the right thing, this was it.”

Doing the right thing meant turning his back on a successful career in the movie business, with his $1 million salary. Instead, he would dedicate himself full time to a new mission: to save hundreds of the poorest children in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Much to everyone’s surprise, within months the Australian native, who as president of 20th Century Fox International had overseen the global success of block-busters like “Titanic,” “Braveheart,” and “Die Another Day,” quit Hollywood. He sold his mansion in Los Angeles and held a garage sale for “all the useless stuff I owned.” He sold off his Porsche and yacht, too.

His sole focus would now be his charity, the Cambodian Children’s Fund, which he had set up the previous year after coming face to face, while on vacation in Cambodia, with children living at the garbage dump.

“The perks in Hollywood were good – limos, private jets, gorgeous girlfriends, going to the Academy Awards,” says Neeson, an affable man with careworn features and a toothy smile. “But it’s not about what lifestyle I’d enjoy more when I can make life better for hundreds of children.”

He sits at his desk barefoot, Cambodian-style, in white canvas pants and a T-shirt. At times he even sounds like a Buddhist monk. “You’ve got to take the ego out of it,” he says. “One person’s self-indulgence versus the needs of hundreds of children, that’s the moral equation.”

This is Jesse, he is a homeless guy that lives under the bridge in Kyeemagh. He owns nothing but a bike, a bird and a bag of about 10 items!

Yesterday, while I was riding my bike down around the beach – which is about 5km from my house – I got a flat tyre. I had no choice but to turn around and wheel my bike the long walk home.
A few people rode past and didn’t really pay me any attention and I didn’t expect them too, but as I started walking, headphones in my ears, I noticed the homeless guy from under the bridge saying something to me. At first I thought he was going to ask me for something so I popped my headphones out and asked him what he wanted? He then replied “I don’t want anything bra but I’ve got a new tube in my bag and you can have it if ya want !” Shocked at first I said no thanks but he insisted. So I walked over to his little clearing where he had his things and his pet bird sat in a busted cage.

He opened up his empty bag and gave me the tube (which was one of the very few things he had) helped me change the tyre, even pumped it up! I asked him how I could pay him back and he said to me “don’t worry about it bra, this is what it’s all about!”

The enormity of his situation and the fact that he went out of his way to help me was so humbling, I mean this guy was willing to give me his stuff and didn’t want anything in return. To you and I, a bike tube would probably not mean much but to a guy with so little this item must hold enormous value!

I could go on and on about how selfless this guy was to give me, a total stranger, clearly in a much better position than him some of his possessions, while people like us are so selfishly attached to all our useless crap.

Anyway I just wanted to show you a pic of Jesse with his new Versace lenses, some fresh Sneakers, a full belly and a cold beer… Felt good to do something for the bloke. I also went up to woollies and got him a couple weeks worth of food and some seed for his bird lol…

Man he was ecstatic even had tears in his eyes and couldn’t thank me enough, but amidst me sitting there proud of my good deed, and him singing me praises, I suddenly felt pretty bad because the truth is if he didn’t go out of his way to help me, I wouldn’t of done anything for him.

I ride past this guy all the time and never even think twice!
Really knocked me off my high horse!

Even tho we sit around with all our materialistic needs and pass judgment, this dude has something that none of us can buy!

I guess what I’m trying to say is thanks for the lesson in humanity champ!