Sisty Klein still isn't sure how her son Eric became Whoopi Goldberg's go-to guy in a humanitarian crisis, or how he landed an introduction on Oprah Winfrey's show today and a spot as a contestant on Sunday's premiere episode of "Oprah's Big Give." It's all quite a trip for a 38-year-old guy who grew up in Salem Willows.
"I think he spent close to $80,000 just in Sri Lanka, and he spent the rest of it down South, and then off to Rwanda," Sisty Klein said. "He blows my mind. As a kid, you couldn't get him to shovel the sidewalk; he would do nothing. And now, one day he called from Sri Lanka, and he was ordering the equipment to clean the roads."
Eric Klein has focused his life on humanitarian work, building schools in Rwanda, wells in Sri Lanka and homes in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. He hopes "Oprah's Big Give," a Winfrey-backed television show focused around philanthropic work, will bring more solutions to the projects he loves.
"If I'm going to start an organization that's ethical, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and show them how it's done," Eric Klein said yesterday in a telephone interview. "Thank God the show came along, so we can show people where this (Can-Do) Network can go."
Klein's charity started as Can-Do.org but has since become the Can-Do Network, including the beginnings of VirtualVolunteer.TV, which aims to bring live streaming video from disaster sites. Through it all, Klein hopes people will quit mentioning his work as a model — a biographical fact listed on Winfrey's Web site. He says that aspect of his life is as little a part of his identity as how he sung in the shower as a kid, or worked as a bartender before working in disaster relief.
Still, few people who'd modeled for Men's Health magazine and had a role on "Sex and the City" have been trading letters with Bill Clinton. Klein pushed the former president to focus on the desperate plight of Sri Lankans who'd received no aid in the aftermath of a tsunami. It was Klein's first big relief effort, using settlement money meant to repair his eye socket after he was hit by a drunken driver. Before all of that, Klein didn't even know where Sri Lanka was.
Now his Web site boasts a letter from M.I. Mohamed Ariff, the mayor of Galle, Sri Lanka: "Mr. Eric and CAN DO ORG from America came to our rescue your organization had to construct and rehabilitate Mahamodara village. You have with very great devotion and commitment done very valuable service to the community to start their lives again."
In Galle, Klein had to find a way to bring residents together. They were desperate, struggling, stressed, frustrated. Divisions among them deepened. Klein figured out how to get the children to work together to build a playground. When they used it, their mothers came to watch them, and talked. Klein got the men to rebuild an ancient bathing well, where friendships could form after the hard work.
Klein is still frustrated with the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He set up supply points for residents to get tampons, water, sleeping bags and other necessities. He's angry that much of the aid given to the relief effort still hasn't been distributed to people living in half-finished homes.
"Red tape is just another word for greed, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think it exists," he said.
Meanwhile, his mother, in the Boxford home she's shared with her husband, Jim, for six years, is still trying to figure out how Eric is doing what he's doing.
"I said to him, 'How do you know how to build a well?' He said, 'I don't know, I'm just doing it,'" Sisty Klein recounted. "I said, 'Something's guiding your hand, because you just know.'"
Eric Klein on TV
r "The Oprah Winfrey Show," today at 4 p.m.
r "Oprah's Big Give," Sunday at 9 p.m.
Both programs air on Channel 5 (WCVB, ABC affiliate)
