Claire Wineland was born with cystic fibrosis or “CF”, a genetic disease that causes excessive mucus secretions and collection, especially in the lungs. In her short life, Claire has undergone dozens of surgeries and has spent weeks at a time in the hospital. This is not, however, what characterizes her. Claire is a singer, an artist, a composer, and a natural-born comedian and speaker. She radiates with a warmth and wisdom beyond her years. She has been called a “little Buddha” a “bridge among people”, and a “true old soul.” She is precious to anyone who has met her, especially to her mother, Melissa, and her father, John.

On April 13, 2010 after a relatively routine surgery, Claire became septic and within 24 hours, was in complete lung failure. Her parents were given the option of watching Claire die or putting her on a dangerous oscillator vent, which no child with CF has ever come off of. Her parents opted to put her on the high powered vent and into a drug induced coma so the doctors could try everything possible to reverse the damage to her lungs and her body. What followed was a remarkable two-week journey of prayer, love and healing.

So many people were inspired by Claire’s journey that a public Facebook page, “Claire Wineland Love, Songs and Updates”, was created to disseminate the seemingly ever changing information. Within two weeks, the fans on the page grew to over 900. Out of this grew the desire and need for a foundation.

Claire constantly strives to give back and make meaning of what she has had to go through; the message she shares is her way to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/clairewineland
Twitter:  @clairewineland
Claire’s Place Foundation, Inc: www.clairesplacefoundation.org

Dr. Benjamin La Brot is a native Southern Californian who learned to swim before he could walk.  From junior high school until after college, he worked on sport and commercial fishing boats, on the Floating Marine Science Laboratory vessel. He qualified as an Emergency Medical Technician, a Handicapped SCUBA Association Dive Buddy for divers with paraplegia, quadriplegia or blindness, and completed a B.S. in Marine Biology (with all pre-med requirements), a B.A. in History, and a Geology Minor from the University of CA, Santa Barbara.

After teaching biology and anatomy for two years, Ben moved to Ireland to study medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons. Throughout his time in Ireland, Ben made private medical missions to Thailand, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.  Enormous need everywhere he went—in the developed as well as the developing world—combined with the belief that the privilege of becoming a doctor comes with the responsibility for ALWAYS being on-call, wherever you may be in the world, have led Ben to combine his love and knowledge of the sea with his talent for medicine and service to create the Floating Doctors.

Ben says that each successive time he traveled in the developing world, his backpack carried fewer personal items and more medical supplies, and that the most heartbreaking part of doing medicine in the developing world is when the backpack is empty and there are still many people in desperate need.  For Dr. Ben, the Southern Wind and his crew of dedicated volunteers is “A much bigger backpack over many thousands of miles; I promised myself I would come back to the developing world with more help, and now I finally have the chance to keep my promise.”

http://floatingdoctors.com/

Laurel Airica took to words like a bird to the skies and began her literary flights of fancy early in her life. Particularly enchanted by rhythm and rhyme, palindromes, puns and other ‘electro-poetic’ linguistic phenomena, she announced to her parents with absolute certainty at age three or four, “I bet I now know all the words in the English language.” Laurel began writing poetry at the age of seven. Many years later, in her first public recitation of her work, she attracted the attention of Matthew Marshall, president/co-founder of Higher Octave Music. Through Mr. Marshall’s generous patronage – in addition to a grant from Marion Weber, Laurel was inspired to take everything she’d discovered about letters and words and to turn it into the performance art she now calls, WordMagic: An Enchanted Literary Entertainment. In so doing, she turned herself into the ‘Metaphysical Mother Goose.’

www.laurelairica.com

In 1999, Malibu Foundation for Youth and Families was founded as a non-profit organization to benefit much needed support services for the greater Malibu community. The Malibu Boys and Girls Club offers a variety of services and opportunity for Malibu Youth. This Fall Sgt. Denoh Grear, Joe Brightman and Lisa Cypers Kamen began co-facilitating a Spoken Word Pilot Program at MBGC. The focus of the class has been the inner (emotional) and outer (battle) wars we all experience while using Spoken Word as a tool for collective exploration, growth and healing. We are honored to have the Malibu Boys and Girls Club Harvesting Happiness through Spoken Word Class Pilot Program at TEDxMalibu.

Connect with Malibu boys and girls glee club

An entrepreneur and former Owner of a Manufacturing company has a deep passion for Pay it Forward. He left his company, career & millions behind to help the world reclaim simplicity in a complex world.

Head of the Worldwide Pay it Forward Movement and President of the Pay it Forward Foundation, he’s the creator of the Pay it Forward Bracelet, a physical reminder to do good that has been sent to over 1.3 million people in 117 countries.
He Founded the “PIF Experience” (www.pifexperience.org) the Official website of the Pay it Forward Movement and responsible for keeping the World up to date on all things Pay it Forward.

Charley also Founded the “Pay it Forward Hall of Fame” in November of 2011 with the First inductee being Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of the Pay it Forward Novel.

Agapi Stassinopoulos is the author of the best-selling book: Unbinding The Heart – 32 stories of lessons and wisdoms of her life.  She was born and raised in Athens, Greece.  At age 18, she entered the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.  She moved to the United States to do film and television, and later attended the University of the Santa Monica, where she completed her Master’s in Psychology.

While she was collaborating with her sister, Arianna Huffington, on her book on the Gods of Greece, Agapi’s love for the gods and goddesses was ignited, which led to two books of her own – Conversations with the Goddesses and Gods and Goddesses in Love – as well as a one-woman show and a PBS special. She also coproduced and cohosted a documentary called “Quest for the Gods,” shot on location in Greece.

Agapi has been invited to speak at numerous international events and global conferences, and has also speaks about health and well-being for The Spirit of Women organization, which represents hundreds of hospitals around the country.  Also, an inspiring teacher, Agapi speaks worldwide to both men and women, empowering them to recognize their individual gifts and create the lives they want. She is a frequent blogger for The Huffington Post.
Her website wwww.unbindingtheheart.com
www.facebook.com/unbindingtheheart
www.twitter.com/agapisays

Sophie Chiche is the founder and curator of lifebyme.com, a website gathering eclectic people answering the question, “what is most meaningful to you”. Nobel Prizes, media moguls, fishermen, midwives, global leaders, spiritual teachers, artists, teenagers share their original meaningful words everyday.

Sophie is about to launch Shape House, an urban sweat lodge. A place to heal, a place to let go, a place to thin and melt away fears and doubts. A place to be with one self with a quiet breath. Available in the fall of 2012.

Sophie is an author, speaker, coach and entrepreneur. She holds Masters in Business, Journalism and Psychology. You can find her asking game-changer deep questions, wallpapering her stairway, dancing with her staff, reading The Little Prince, and … oh, you know … living a life of meaning.

View Sophie’s TEDx 2011 speech, “Learning Curves: A Process to Accomplishing What Matters to You”

Virginia Beach singer/songwriter, musician and recording artist, Bekah Eden hails from a small town in Southern Virginia, and twenty-seven years later has emerged from the confines of farm life to share her stories with the world through her music. In 2006, Eden studied Music Education at Old Dominion University. In the summer of 2008 she was signed locally to produce a pop album entitled “Unexpected,” on the Dream21 label with Grammy Winning Producer Curtis Key. Eden later graduated with a Bachelor in Arts Degree in 2009.

In 2010 Eden began to work as a successful small business owner under Bekah Eden. Inc., developing musical skills and songwriting talent for her students in Virginia Beach and California.  Eden also began writing original material for other artists nationwide, including her students, and built a reputation as a well known cause artist, working for charitable organizations such as Harvesting Happiness for Heroes ®, a national 501© (3) nonprofit organization, benefiting post combat veterans and their families challenged with the invisible symptoms of PTSD and TBI.  Eden’s song In Between for HH4Heroes.org, available on iTunes, garnered the attention of renowned Malibu producer and founder of the Malibu Music Awards, Terence Davis in 2012. Eden and Davis continue to work together on collaborative songwriting and recording through Davis’ Production Company, Great Music, Inc. She won the Upcoming Female Artist Award at the 2012 Malibu Music Awards.

www.bekaheden.com
www.facebook.com/bekaheden
www.myspace.com/bekahedenmusic
www.twitter.com/bekaheden
http://soundcloud.com/bekaheden

David Ari Leon is a multiple award-winning and Emmy-nominated composer and music supervisor. He has brought his signature blend of acute classical expertise and emotive pop ethos to countless films, video games, albums, and TV shows. David’s music can currently be heard in places such as ABC’s hit show, Sea World’s “Sea Rescue and on Disney XD’s “The Avengers.” He is music director and co-founder of the Voice of Life project, whose mission is to elevate wellness with great music.  He’s also raising mobile game music to new heights with his immensely popular music. Recently, he scored Woody Woodpecker, named “iPhone Game of the Week,” the top-seller Superman (Warner Bros), and Contre Jour, the No. 1 selling game app, and “iPad Game of the Year” in more than 10 countries. Leon’s SoundMind Music is a company that oversees the entire music package for a project with many clients including luminaries such as: Lionsgate Films, Warner Bros, Marvel, Universal, DC Comics, ABC, Sea World, EA and Disney.

SoundMindMusic.com
Facebook.com/DavidAriLeon