Jeff Gordon On Congo Trip: ‘It Was The Most Incredible Experience Of My Life’

Jeff Gordon made a brief appearance on NBC’s Today this morning to talk about his recent humanitarian trip to Congo.
For those who may have missed it, here’s a transcript of Ann Curry’s interview with Gordon.

ANN CURRY: You just went over to Congo. What drew you to this issue of refugees?

JEFF GORDON: Well, being a part of CGI Lead, which is the Clinton Global Initiative program that has brought together accomplished young leaders to find innovative ways to figure out how we can solve some of the major issues going on around the world.

One of our initiatives is to find better ways to deal with education, economic and health empowerment in the Congo and those internally displaced persons. And we felt like we had to go there to truly experience it so we can figure out what we’re going to do.

ANN CURRY: So you’re part of this initiative called ‘Rethink Refugees.’ What did being there, face-to-face with these people who don’t have anything, tell you or show you that you want to tell America?

JEFF GORDON: It was the most incredible experience of my life; I’ll never forget it. At first, it’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen – the rolling hills, the landscape. But then it’s quickly overshadowed by these incredible challenges that the people are faced with.

Obviously, you can’t speak their language, so we had translators. But we did speak to many of them. And you know what? They’re fighters. They’re resilient.

The children, you come up to them and they want money, they want food; but as soon as you interact with them, they light up. And that look in their eyes, when you connect with that, you want to know, ‘What can I do personally?’ and ‘What can we do as a group?’ as well as get that message out to others that these people really need our help.

We can do short-term and long-term things that can truly change their lives. These are people living on $40, $50 – and some less – a week.