Email from the Holy Angels SAGE team in Cape Town South Africa:

The following post was written by Brian Carrier, the SAGE coach for Holy Angels Academy in Buffalo, New York as his final email.  Brian recounts the excitement of the evening of the Finals competion and the awards announcemnt. In 2008 and 2010 Santa Monica and Team Holy Angels both participated as the USA representatives to the World Cup event. In addition, Holy Angels also traveled to Brazil in 2009 and placed 3rd.

What follows is Brian’s posting of the final competition events sent to all of the supporters and fans waiting in Buffalo. It is very long and of course written through the lens of our sister team Holy Angels but Brian does a great job capturing the excitement and emotions of the evening.

Thank you Brian

 From Brian-
Everyone, first a little history, the Holy Angels Academy High School SAGE team has competed for 5 years and this is their third World Cup appearance in a row; Cape Town this year 2010, Brasilia Brazil in 2009 and Abuja Nigeria in 2008. SAGE stands for Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship. The girls start real businesses each year, continue their real business every year, start and continue social responsible projects. Add in 6 other criteria, ..now do it globally in a socially and environmentally responsible way. BP are you listening? (That’s British Petroleum who should send their President, their senior staff and their board of directors to a SAGE event to SEE HOW THEY SHOULD THINK AND ACT!)

This is the final email of long tournament with teams from about 20 countries.

The semi final brackets were yesterday and they seem like forever away. The fantastic final four starts at 4:30 PM but, I am still waiting for Heather Wilson to return from her air flight to be interviewed on national South African TV, our equivalent to Good Morning America in the United States. Our Holy Angels President, Heather Wilson and David, the leader and president of the South African High School team got a full 10 minutes of airtime on the premier TV morning show broadcast to over one million viewers! They rocked. They get back to the hotel at 3:00 PM and the finals start at 4:30!

Girls got dressed and ready to go, entered the main room at 4:15 and right at 4:30 the big show starts. Now the excitement really starts. There is an announcement that in one of the brackets there was a tie, so two teams from that bracket are moving up and it is now a FIVE team final. All five team names are in the bowl and the hand goes in to select the first team to present. EVERY team from the sweet 16 has come ready to perform because no one knows the winner of the individual brackets. The name drawn is from Bracket “C”, our bracket of Holy Angels, South Korea, Santa Monica and Zambia. And the winner is, USA, Santa Monica! It is like sudden death overtime in a sporting match, we lost, and it’s over? No tears from these Angels, we cheer Santa Monica on as they quickly go to the stage to set up and present. Solid presentation (14 minutes) with a good Q&A, 7 minutes, I keep my own score to see if I can predict the winner. I score them high.

 Next pick is Bracket B winner: Nigeria! They just knocked off the three time defending world champion from their country. Here comes a power packet presentation. They started something like 6 new businesses, continued 7 businesses, start 6 or more social ventures, it goes on and on, I give them literally a perfect score believing I am looking at the new World Cup champ. But here comes the Q&A and it can’t go any worse for the Nigerians. They only answer 3 questions in 7 minutes. They ramble on don’t answer the questions; I and everyone in the room are shocked. Never in 5 years have I seen a Q&A like that. They are in big trouble.

Next team up is Canada! They were in Brazil last year and are twice as good. Powerful opening, high energy, slow in the middle, good ending, very good Q&A, Gloria Yoon their team advisor is very proud and so am I!

Next up is South Africa! Home team makes it to the final 5! This is the team with the student who went to Johannesburg with Heather for the TV show. Our teams have been hanging out and emailing for two years, we are happy. They perform well, but are clearly the weakest of the 5 teams. Great ovation for the boys, who also have great accents when they speak!

Final team called up: This is the mystery team who tied in their bracket; we know this because all 4 brackets have been called, this last team could be any team, and it is Singapore! But this is the second ranked team from their country. They perform, just a team of 3, polished, clear speakers, poise, confidence, energy, passion. They open with describing how they came as a first year team because they were new to their school and the last year’s SAGE team had disbanded. So they tie their bracket and they move into the final 5. So Team Singapore presents and blows the roof off the venue. When they end the room goes crazy cheering for them. When the cheering stops, I turn to my girls and say “We Got Schooled”! They were that good.

Now the fun begins, as the judges for the final 5 go to select the World Champion, the 10 special awards are given out. They award first ($200), second ($100) and third ($50) for each of the eight Millennium Goals. The Grossman Environmental Award first ($2000), second ($1000) and third ($500) and the Boschee award for best social businesses first ($2000), second ($1000) and third ($500). Holy Angels is build around the Boschee award and we are praying for a top three and maybe another award so one or two of our girls can go on stage and accept an award while holding our Holy Angels Banner and our huge red white and blue American Flag. Here it comes, the first MDG award, Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty: they announce third, not us, second, not us, first place: Holy Angels Academy! Wow first place for our Congo and Lifestraw project in Haiti. Sister Mary Finnick and Dominique, thank you for your prayers, we made it to the big stage and won a beautiful plaque for the school.

But here it comes, the flood gates open and Holy Angels storms the stage! We are awarded top three in 7 of the 8 Millennium Goals of the World. No team came close to walking on stage as many times as the girls did. But it is not over, here comes the big one, the Boschee Award, they announce third, not us, second place: Holy Angels! For our third year in a row we take second place and win $1,000.00 and our total prize money is $1,850.00 in awards. We are stunned. All the hard work the girls did all year is truly recognized. I never imagined that we could achieve what last years team in Brazil did, but they did. Once again as I have said in the past, “Never, never, never, never underestimate a Holy Angels girl”!

Now they announce the final Team event winners:

Turns out there is a tie on the judges ballots for first place! They have to add up the judge’s individual score sheets and verify everything! I takes a while and we wait as students from around the world walk on stage and sing songs and rap to pass the time, very cool.

Drum roll:

• 5th Place: Nigeria – The room is shocked! The Q&A did them in, dead silence as they accept their award.
• 4th Place: South Africa – Good for the boys! We love this team and are happy for them
• 3rd Place: Canada – this team is in tears, happy tears for making it this far, a joy to see students so happy they openly cry in front of 300 to 400 people
• 2nd Place: USA Santa Monica! I gave them our American Flag to hold on stage and they look great! Be proud America!
• 1st Place: Team Singapore! They kids are ecstatic! Tears for at least 30 minutes, cameras flashing, hugs all around. They earned and WON this award.

 We stayed up until 5:30 am hanging with the Irish, Russians and best of friends the South Africans.

  It is 11:00 am we are now up and heading to Robin Island where Nelson Mandela spent all those years in prison.

And now it is our turn to change the world.

As my Holy Angels girls say as they end every presentation: “NOW, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO”!