Exit
never be able to raise enough
money. Worse, his kids had told
all of their friends. He sulked. He
was bedridden. Lewis had just
about given up hope when he
received a surprising email.
“We had gone to a noodle
shop,” Lewis says. “My phone
buzzed, I’ll never forget — it was
the craziest thing.” The sound
alerted him to an email from
none other than Yoko Ono, who
knew of his project through a
friend. “I heard about your project,” it read. “Just go do it!”
“I emailed her back,” recalls
Lewis, a Charlotte resident and
acting coach. “And I said your single email changed the course of our
lives because it made us get off of
our butts and do it.”
Lewis’ NGO, TwelveinTwelve,
started after his eldest son Jackson approached him with a meaningful question.
“Jackson came home from school
one day a year and a half ago and
said, ‘dad we have an incredible life,
how come we aren’t doing more to
make a difference in the world?’”
EARLY YEARS
Lewis was in awe of the conscientiousness of his eldest son, recalling his own youth wryly.
GREATEST PERSON
OF THE WEEK
“When I was 13 all I cared about
was smoking pot and surfing,” he
said. “And I was a mess of a kid — I
lost both my parents, didn’t know
how to process grief.”
Lewis describes his childhood
as a Stephen King novel — his
mother had died of an overdose
and his father took a gun to his
head a year later.
Pursuing a career as an actor,
Lewis landed many commercials
HUFFINGTON
10.07.12
Lewis
peruses the
mementos
from his
travels.