Juanita Britton's Random Acts Receives High Praise and High Fives

March 14, 2007

Reactions to Juanita "Busy Bee" Britton's random acts of kindness during her two-week mission of giving in Africa , intrigued and inspired those who met her as well as those who heard about it. In South Africa she received high praise and high fives from corporate executives, members of the diplomatic community and media and ample kudos from notables in Senegal .

Kim Davis, president of the New York-based J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation, described Ms. Britton's work as "powerful." She heard about her efforts while she was in Johannesburg to speak at a South African Women’s Leadership Conference.
“Corporations like J.P. Morgan can and will and must make a difference,” said Ms. Davis, an African American woman who manages philanthropy and controls more than $100 million of the corporate giving efforts all over the world.
“But the real change will have to come from people touching, like she is.”

Marcia Morgan who is the wife of Michael Morgan, a diplomat who works at the United Nations Development Program met Ms. Britton several years ago through a mutual friend.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said when she learned of Ms. Britton's project. She contacted Ms. Britton to ask if she would be willing to reach out to the family of her former hairdresser, a Congolese woman who recently died leaving five children behind.
“I wanted them to meet somebody who could make them happy,” she said.

Ms. Britton took the children grocery shopping. Ms. Morgan didn’t divulge how much Ms. Britton spent but one of her assistant producers who accompanied her on the trip, said that she bought so much food that one of the shopping carts collapsed.
“The little ones were over the moon,” said Ms. Morgan who arranged for the children to miss school for the day so they could get involved in picking out the groceries.
“They were allowed to go down the aisle and pick out what they needed.”
She said that they were very conservative when they selected the food and were thrilled when they were allowed to pick more than one of the same item.
“Not in their wildest dreams would they have that amount of foodstuff in a year, let alone a day,” she said.
“It’s not courage but something else must touch you to do something like this,” she said. “That’s the way God touched her, to touch other peoples lives.”

Ms. Britton's Random Acts project also drew praise from the media.
"I wish I had been out there with her so I could have seen it," said National Public Radio Special Correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault who is based in South Africa . Ms. Gault interviewed Ms. Britton about her trip for a segment on NPR's News & Notes radio program.

Ms. Britton was also a guest on Johannesburg ’s most popular radio talk show SA FM’s Morning Talk with Xolani Gwala. She had an overwhelming response from callers that turned the scheduled 5-minute interview into 15 minutes, in prime time!
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"From the reaction I got from the South Africans that I talked to, people have been very appreciative. This is the kind of initiative that is sure to inspire other people to do similar things."
Molly Melching, executive director of the Tostan organization, which empowers African communities to take charge of their own development, was among Ms. Britton's admirers in Senegal.

“I’ve known Busy Bee for many years,” said Ms. Melching, who arranged for Ms. Britton to visit some of the Tostan participating communities during her visit. “She has always been an enthusiastic supporter of movements of social transformation. She’s a model for so many women.“I thought it was so exciting that she changed her plans to have a 50th birthday celebration for herself and do this.”

Visit: http://www.randomactsfoundation.com/story.html

Watch: http://www.ibroadcast.com/randomacts.html