by: Adrian Varnam

Clarence Award Ceremony
presented to Jock Brandis of The Full Belly Project
UNCW Kenan Auditiorium
Screenings: Two Hours in the Dark (a short by Chip Hackler) and It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra
December 13th, 2pm

“Strange, isn’t it?” asks angel Clarence Odbody to George Bailey in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. “Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” It’s a philosophical question that UNCW Film Studies Chair, Dr. Lou Buttino, has seen asked countless times as part of his department’s annual screening of the holiday classic. But it was five years ago that the scene became the impetus for the creation of the Clarence Award, which recognizes someone in the community who helps others realize, like Clarence, how valuable their lives are to others. This year’s award will be presented to a man many consider an angel among us: Wilmington resident and founder of the Full Belly Project, Jock Brandis.

“The Clarence Award is about recognizing someone for their contribution, the nature of their contribution and the nature of the person themselves,” Dr. Buttino says. “We really try to represent that angel in It’s a Wonderful Life, who really does make people see that they do matter in this world. It’s an ironic thing because the goal is to pick somebody that wouldn’t normally want to receive an award. That’s not why they’re doing it. They’re doing it because they care, and because they’re generous of spirit and the last thing they want to do is to be recognized. And those are the people that I want to recognize so that we have positive role models in this community, about the galvanizing power of good example.”

In keeping with that theme, it’s an award, Dr. Buttino says, that truly comes from the community itself. Nominees are recommended every fall by citizens who wish to recognize the angelic nature of someone in the area, and the winner is voted on by an anonymous committee of faculty and students. The winner is awarded during the annual screening of Capra’s film at UNCW, now in its 12th year.

For the greater Wilmington community, and throughout many parts of the poorest areas of our world, Jock Brandis, is the epitome and living embodiment of the spirit of Clarence Odbody. Born in the Netherlands and raised in Canada, Brandis, as a young man, became a volunteer with CUSO, the Canadian version of the Peace Corps. After two years teaching in West Kingston, Jamaica, he returned to Canada and began working with Oxfam International in their effort to aid the people of Biafra, a secessionist state trying to gain independence from Nigeria in the late 1960s. With years of humanitarian work in Africa under his belt, Brandis returned to North America and began working in the film industry, a career path that eventually landed him in Wilmington. But after many years of being a fixture in the area’s growing film community, Brandis became increasingly discontent with the work and found himself longing again to make a difference in the lives of others, outside of making movies.

“I was really just very bored with the film industry, and no one liked working with me because I really didn’t like doing it anymore,” he reveals. “You know, you don’t wanna spend all your time hanging around someone who just doesn’t want to be there. And I guess I always wanted to do this. People in the film business remember, the joke was, when they’d see me daydreaming, they’d say, ‘Oh, he’s thinking about drip irrigation in Zimbabwe.’”

Always known to friends and colleagues as an innovative and technical whiz, it was around this time in 2001 that Brandis traveled to Mali, Africa, to help a friend in the Peace Corps repair some machinery. In what would become a serendipitous moment, he made a promise to some village women to locate a machine back in the States to help them shell peanuts more efficiently, a technological advancement that would provide more food and income from the trade. So when Brandis returned to find nothing of the sort here in America, he invented one himself. The result, the Universal Nut Sheller, was the impetus for the founding of his non-profit organization, Full Belly Project, and garnered Brandis and his invention national awards and recognition, including the 2006 Popular Mechanic’s Breakthrough Award and the 2008 $100,000 Purpose Prize.

But what makes Brandis so unusual is his desire to keep his contributions and ideas public domain, a decision that he believes has the greatest impact on the greatest number of people. It’s a quality not lost on Lou Buttino. In fact, he believes it’s exactly what makes Brandis a modern-day Clarence Odbody.
“Jock’s so self-effacing, so generous of heart and so modest,” Dr. Buttino says. “It’s very rare to find all of that in somebody. I think he has the same wit as Clarence, the same sense of humor and unselfish willingness to give, and I think without saying so, he demonstrates a powerful, powerful belief that we can do better—and he’s done it. There were some really nice candidates for this year’s award, but if you’re feeding the third world, it’s hard to compete with that.”

Brandis’ work with the Full Belly Project has grown well beyond helping to feed the poor with the Universal Nut Sheller. What began as a project designed to address one specific problem has grown into a full-blown organizational think-tank and engineering firm, addressing the underdeveloped world’s biggest issues with ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness. Nearly an estimated quarter of a million children die every year due to diseases stemming from poor hygiene in school. Brandis and Full Belly invented a hand-washing system, using an oil drum, truck tire, plastic bottles, bolts and bottle caps. During an African dry season, it’s hard to irrigate props efficiently or even supply enough water to keep cattle alive. Brandis and Full Belly invented a water pump that uses a reciprocating motor built from concrete and truck inner tubes. The secret, he says, is using simple technology that can be duplicated using materials already accessible in the countries that need it the most. It’s this approach that fuels the Full Belly Project and their mission to change the lives of others through self-sustaining ingenuity.

“These pumps will go to a village; they won’t go to a family,” Brandis says. “You can basically irrigate an acre of land a day with this pump. We have a whole array of technology—we have a lot of solutions. We have fuel solutions, and we have food solutions and water pumping and drilling and purifying solutions and all kinds of stuff. I was kind of a mad inventor in the movie business, and I just learned to do really weird out-of-the-box stuff. I guess I just have a talent for it.”

Talent and dedication, and an unwavering spirit matched with big ideas and a desire for changing lives. Brandis and his colleagues at the Full Belly organization, and their partners, approach every day with a purpose to help those around the world learn to help themselves. It’s a philosophy that recognizes the importance of the human spirit and offers hope for a better life.

“Being recognized for this is really nice,” he says. “And, you know, the whole kind of Clarence idea is a nice, interesting, Christmas metaphor. So, I’m sort of flattered. When they told me, I thought, Well, that’s a nice thing. People don’t normally connect me with angels. You know, they connect me with mad scientists, but not angels.”

The Clarence Award will be presented to Jock Brandis, Sunday, December 13th, at UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium. The event will begin at 2pm with a presentation of Chip Hackler’s Two Hours in the Dark, a short film about Frank Capra, followed by the 12th annual screening of It’s a Wonderful Life. All events are free and open to the public.