Trish Crawford
Living Reporter
In the darkest hour of her life, real estate agent Arnie Renda made the soul-saving decision to stop complaining.

“My mother died, my husband died, the market was crashing,” Renda says of 2008, “and I was like Teflon. I let it roll off me.”

She’d read a little book, A Complaint Free World, written by Missouri pastor Will Bowen, which talked about the negativity of complaining.

It urged people to keep track of how much they complain by moving a little purple wristband from arm to arm each time they groused.

“Life is better without complaining in spite of everything that has happened to me,” says Renda. “I feel so good.”

With more than 100,000 books sold in North America and many more $1 wristbands, the stop-complaining prophet has hit a nerve with people of all walks of life. What started as a Sunday morning sermon has blossomed into a movement embraced by schools, workplaces and individuals who see the wisdom of muting their inner critic.

People who try it admit they are shocked to find out how much they complain and how hard it is to break the habit. But there’s also surprise at the benefits ditching the bitching brings to their lives.

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The West Coast Eagles are preparing for a huge clash with AFL ladder leaders St Kilda this weekend but they will turn some of the focus towards another battle facing West Australians.Sunday has been dubbed ‘Dig Deep Day’ and the Eagles will call on supporters to put their hands in their pockets at Subiaco Oval to raise funds for the Cancer Council WA.

Yellow ‘Dig Deep’ wristbands will be available for purchase at the ground for $3, with the Eagles hoping to raise more than $100,000 for the cause.

West Coast utility Beau Waters, an ambassador for the Cancer Council WA, spoke at the launch about the importance of getting behind this initiative.

“It’s a sad fact that this year around 10,000 Western Australians will be told the terrible news that they have cancer,” Waters said.

“As a club and as players we want to do all we can to help raise awareness about cancer and support the work of the Cancer Council and we know our fans will want to join us in our efforts.

“We are encouraging everyone coming to the round 15 game to wear yellow and purchase a wristband to show support for people battling this disease and to represent the hope that one day cancer will be defeated.

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Nineteen-year-old Carolan DeMeuse of Marinette was hysterical when she found out her close friend Steven Drees had died from injuries he received in combat in Afghanistan.

DeMeuse decided to honor Drees by spearheading an effort to order red and blue silicone remembrance bracelets.The bracelets, which will be delivered Friday from an online company, bear the date of Drees’ death — June 28 — and the name Steven Thomas Drees with a cross next to it.

Many people already have requested them through a Facebook memorial page set up for Drees; DeMeuse said she ordered about 500.“He was such a happy person,” DeMeuse said of what she remembered most about her friend. “He was smiling, so he kept everybody else smiling.”

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The chartreuse rubber bracelets have a simple saying: “If you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”

Made by honors students at Sweet Home High School, the bands are being sold to raise funds to build a school for girls in a remote northern village of Tanzania, where needs are great and resources are few.

The bracelet project is part of a communitywide effort led by the University at Buffalo to make a difference in the lives of girls who are often devalued and left with few options in life.

“Parents [in Tanzania] do not have money to send their kids to school and force the girls to get married when they are extremely young —12 and 13 years old,” said Sister Janepha Kudema one of two Tanzanian nuns in Buffalo studying business and economics on a scholarship at D’Youville College. She noted it is culturally important to exchange daughters in marriage for valuable dowries.

The alternative is often not much of an option, either. “For those who don’t want to get married, they run away from their families to the big cities, and because they don’t have education and no one can hire them, they get into prostitution and eventually die from HIV/AIDS,” Kudema said.

AIDS is the leading cause of death for adults in a country where life expectancy in 2005 was 51. Forced female circumcision also claims the lives of many girls.

Mara Huber, director of UB’s Center for Educational Collaboration, embraced the idea of the Tanzanian school after hearing about it from Kudema and her colleague at her mother-in-law’s Amherst home on Christmas Day 2007. The nuns described how classes in the Musoma village are held in fields.

Huber was immediately struck when they noted the village is in the Mara Region — her first name. More than 1 million people live there, and it is home to Serengeti National Park, one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the world.

“I thought it was a pretty amazing coincidence,” Huber said, referring to the name. “Then, when they explained why they were in this country, and found out the nature of my work, that coincidence became, I think, even more compelling.”

What has also attracted Huber to the project is the opportunity to tie together girls and women across continents and generations.

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Wristbands emblazoned with various campaign slogans and uplifting messages of support are nothing new, but when two Florida residents came up with a simple phrase it seems to have captured the essence of these tough economic times: “I need a job.”

Barbara Bourn and Stephanie Aucoin, both victims of the recession, came up with the idea just a couple of months ago and it has proved to be a huge success.

They began with just a few hundred of the wristbands giving them to friends and colleagues, and for some it worked.

Now Barbara’s small rented home is overwhelmed with orders from across the United States.

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