Maggie Doyne: $100,000 Worth of 'Yes'

When Maggie Doyne's name was announced as the winner of the Do Something Award $100,000 grand prize Thursday night, it took a minute before she reached the stage. (Fast-forward to 1:30 in the acceptance speech video below to get to the good stuff.)

Presumably busy hugging her parents and catching her breath, Doyne finally ran out of the wings and threw her arms around the presenter before taking her moment at the microphone.

"Sometimes making someone's dream come true is a 'yes' away," she said. "Thank you, Do Something, for being my 'yes' tonight!"

Doyne's string of brave "yesses" started years ago, however, and each one is equally responsible for chain reacting — then catapulting — her to this point of social entrepreneurship at just 22 years old. She gave a big yes to enrolling in a gap-year program after high school, got a yes from her parents who supported her ambitions and embraced the yes from a community who has welcomed her with open arms.

The Kopila Valley Children's Home in Nepal is a collection of these affirmations and a firm yes to the promise of loving homes for Nepali refugee children.

Doyne approaches her work without a trace of righteousness (of the I'm-an-American-off-to-save-starving-children variety) or self-importance. Referring to her "realization, freak-out moment" when deciding to leave New Jersey and soul-search via globe-trekking, she says, "We all have those moments, you know?"

Maybe so, but we don't all decide to cash in our life savings — in this case, $5,000 worth of babysitting earnings — to buy land in Nepal. We don't all become the (young!) legal guardian of 26 orphaned refugee children. And we certainly don't find ourselves offered a $100,000 check to feed our dream. No, Maggie, you're not the typical dreamer.

Atypical studies

She insists, however, that she was a "typical New Jersey high school gal." She says she was focused on the external — though in her case, "external" didn't extend to Gucci bags and social status so much as grades, a boyfriend, athletics and SATs. It was a sudden urge to take off and see the world that sent her on an impromptu trip across the globe, courtesy of "gap-year" programs that Doyne hopes become a stronger trend in the United States. Long a norm in Europe and Australia, young people with the resources are taking time between high school and college to explore and learn through travel. After working her way through Fiji, Australia and New Zealand, it was Northeastern India that struck a chord.

She became friends with a 16-year-old Nepalese girl who'd fled her country eight years before, urgently escaping the terrors of a civil war. The two set out to visit her homeland for the first time since the girl had left. One bus ride and a two-day Himalayan trek later, Maggie's eyes were opened to the realities of war's aftermath in Nepal. Her dream was born: providing a loving shelter and education to young refugees who've lost hope.

She emphasizes that 1 million children are orphaned in Nepal — whether abandoned, displaced, or street children.

"We've got a huge, huge number and a huge issue on our hands. Because I think these cycles that we're seeing are perpetual. And they keep repeating themselves because they're not being handled when they're kids. If you go out on the street without anything ... I mean, chances are — no education, no literacy — you're going to be recruited as a guerrilla soldier. And I think that ends with education. With children having a childhood."

So Doyne built them a home — a three-story home where 26 kids live, eat, cook, laugh, learn and play. And she built a community outreach program that has placed 700 orphans in permanent homes. She cultivates community and looks to locals to express their needs and concerns; her entire board of directors are natives of Nepal. When she built the home, 250 people came out from the local village in support and celebration.

"They really take ownership over it and they feel like it's theirs," she said.

Meant to be

Doyne almost didn't throw herself in the running for the Do Something awards. She changed her mind at the 11th hour while holding court at the deathbed of one of her beloved kids, a girl who had been taken to London for medical care but did not survive a brain tumor that took her life far too soon. Before the show, before she was announced as the winner, Maggie talked about little reminders — coincidences like just this week finding a necklace the little girl had made her, for example — that encourages her to keep working in her honor.

Doyne said, "All kinds of strange things have been happening. So I feel like she's ... if we win — and if we don't win, either way — we're going to build a school, and we're going to build it in her name. She's been a very big part of this."

Get a clue, spread the word

Reporters have asked Maggie in interviews if she really means DePaul, in Minnesota, rather than Nepal, in Asia. No — Nepal, she assures them. When many educated Americans can't find the country on a map, it's doubtful that our society is informed about the place and the gruesome civil war that forced child displacement in the region.

Doyne isn't trying to be a star or mega-fundraiser. She's not trying to be an expert on global politics, but she's eager to encourage young people to be informed about the issues that shape our world. Even she admits that she had no idea that Nepal was even a country before she started her travels.

"I grew up without a clue," said Doyne. "If we know what the problems are, what the issues are, I think we'd choose to live our lives a little differently. You can't call us ignorant and you can't call us selfish. And that's the reputation that our generation is having to fight against. But what I've seen is that we do care. We all do. And we're all on this path to try to make the world a better place in our own way, our generation. And I think that's what's so exciting."