If I had a million dollars and six months to do something amazing, I’d get America and the world to realize that we’re all fishermen. Every one of us.
I’d do this by handpicking nine friends in the advertising industry to take a five-month sabbatical with me in coastal Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.
During the day, we’d work as volunteers to clean up the beaches and wetlands affected by the BP oil spill.
But at night, we’d cook dinners for the fishermen directly affected by the disaster. Fishermen, their families, and their friends. Nothing fancy, just good food and good conversation for people who are now out of work.
In other words, we’d make dinner for the people who used to make ours.
These dinners would be streamed live on the Web at www.dinnerwithafisherman.com. I'd invite people worldwide to join us for dinner and hear how how the oil spill is affecting living, breathing human beings. Today. Now.
I’d also capture the dinners on film with my nine-person cleanup-volunteer-cook-staff-movie-crew. We’d come away with all kinds of real, unscripted moments: some of them heartbreaking, some humorous, and many of them poignant and hopeful.
After five exhausting but amazing months, my friends and I would take a final month to make a film: “Dinner with a Fisherman” — an ode to Gulf fishermen and their endangered way of life. And how that affects all of us.
I’d work to get “Dinner with a Fisherman” distributed far and wide. The proceeds would go to the Gulf Fisherman’s Fund, which I would set up to help retrain fishermen for work in other industries (and to support their families while they do it).
Last of all, I’d take the visual of an empty fisherman’s hook and make it the symbol for my cause. I’d get celebrities to wear the empty hook in public to raise awareness (รก la Livestrong bracelets and Susan G. Komen ribbons).
Because in the end, an empty hook means an empty plate… and an empty life for thousands of families and communities on the Gulf Coast.
It’s that empty hook that connects us, and makes us all fishermen.
That’s about the coolest thing I can think of to do with a million dollars. And six months.
After which I'd go back to work and make ads. But I'd feel pretty damn good about what I'd helped accomplish.
Thanks for reading.
