Avner: Over the years, we’ve constantly thought of new ideas of how to raise money for the organization and when we thought of the I Think I Can Campaign, my first “I Think I Can” was “I can sing!” And so I thought let’s sing for At The Crossroads and see if anybody will come and donate and hear me sing. And Clarellen thought it was a great idea; I hired a pianist to rehearse with, and we had several nights of me singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof—which I performed in high school for two years running—and it was liberating. It was an unbelievable experience for me, which raised some money, for sure, for the campaign—but what a breath of fresh air to experience something for a cause that has to do with your own personal goals and challenges, and that was one of the highlights of the 18 years: singing for At The Crossroads.
Rob: It was amazing. I mean, I loved how you would try to find a new way to challenge yourself to do something meaningful. Like I remember one year you tried to, quote unquote, declutter your house [Laughs], and I remember your uh..successes and challenges in that area [Laughs].
Avner: That year, where I challenged myself to do the most difficult thing I could ever do, I actually failed. I raised money for At The Crossroads, but not as much as I planned to and some of my friends gave up on me ’cause they came to inspect and saw that I was posting phony pictures on the website [Laughing] trying to encourage people to believe that I was doing it. And so that was a reality check that I wasn’t really ready to deal with my hoarding and my clutter, but again, it was an opening a portal for myself as a person in raising funds for At The Crossroads.
Rob: One of the things that was always so much fun about the I Think I Can Campaign was just that it mirrored our client philosophy. That it was the idea of helping people figure out what their goals are and then providing a way of giving support, motivation, and incentive to help them achieve those goals. And celebrating their successes, but not judging their failures or their challenges, and instead, really believing that engaging in the goal and the process in of itself is meaningful and it’s important. And I think you were an incredible example of that on different fronts.
