You probably know Jonathan Goldsmith, even if you don’t immediately recognize his name…he is, after all, “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”
But did you know that the handsome, silver-haired actor in a series of popular TV ads for Dos Equis beer is also a Vermonter who makes his home in Manchester? And that Jonathan Goldsmith’s real-life volunteer work is even more interesting—and important—than his television persona as a thrill-seeking, world-traveling sophisticate who’s irresistible to women.
Goldsmith has been working with Clear Path International, a group with Vermont ties that helps conflict survivors around the world. And he’s just returned from Vietnam, marking the 40th anniversary of the end of US military involvement in that country, meeting there with survivors of landmine accidents.
A video by Clearpath that features Goldsmith highlights the problem of still-active landmines and has been viewed nearly 900-thousand times on You Tube.
Jonathan Goldsmith joins Mitch Wertlieb along with Vermonter James Hathaway, co-founder of Clear Path International, to talk about their work.
Goldsmith says there are somewhere between 500,000 to 800,000 tons of un-exploded weapons estimated to be lingering in Vietnam. He says that despite living in this dangerous situation, the Vietnamese people Clear Path International has worked with have asked for very little.
"I will share with you that they ask for almost nothing," Goldsmith says. "They are the most humble people and they have the greatest needs."
James Hathaway says Clear Path is continuing to raise funds for victim assistance work.
"We run into existing survivors, that have been around a long time, needing surgery," he says.
Hathaway says Clear Path is also working to assist recent survivors needing anything from prosthetic limbs to vocational training, as well as bereavement services to victim's families.
