Honor their sacrifices. Keep fighting.

Monday is Memorial Day.  I've posted articles like these, almost every year since starting this blog in 2005. They all have a similar message.  "Honor the sacrifices of those who served by giving your time, talent, dollars and votes to create systems of hope and opportunity for youth living in areas of highly concentrated poverty."

In 2013 Kyungryul Kim, an intern from South Korea, created this video, showing steps needed to fight this war.  It was based on a blog article I wrote earlier.

 

I point to more than 150 Chicago area youth-serving programs in lists I have built since the early 1990s. My goal has been to help each program attract more consistent attention and a better flow of needed operating resources.   

The "War on Poverty" video highlights each of the steps shown on this graphic.

Every city and state needs a planning process like this. I don't think I've ever seen one from any Mayor of Chicago.  That's one reason we're still fighting this war.  If leaders in your community have created a visual like this to show their process, please share it.

I follow most of Chicago's volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning organizations on their social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.  Very few post on BlueSky, Threads or Mastodon.  I don't use Tic Toc, so don't know how frequently Chicago youth-serving programs are posting there.

That means I'm able to see posts by leaders of many different tutor/mentor programs.  Many are eloquent in making the case for why volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs are needed.   

A couple of weeks ago Jeffrey Beckham, Jr,. CEO of Chicago Scholars, wrote this article, titled "The Power of Mirrors and Windows".   In it he wrote, 

"Someone else asked me recently, how do you not burn out doing this work? 

 The answer is the young people. They keep you honest. 

 Every single scholar I meet reminds me why it matters. You don’t burn out when you stay close to the people you are doing it for. You burn out when you get too far away from them, and it starts feeling like strategy instead of people."

I feel the same way.

My passion for the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I've led since 2011 through Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC, comes from my interactions with students and volunteers of the Montgomery Ward-Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, which I led from 1975 to 1992 and Cabrini Connections, which I formed in late 1992 and led until mid 2011.  

Read Jeffrey's article, and follow the posts by other tutor, mentor and learning programs.  As we honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our country's freedom, these show that the war is not over.  There's much you can do to help youth and families living in areas of concentrated poverty.

There's much you can do to stop the damage being done to the United States of America by the current President and his supporters.  

One thing you can do is keep reading my blog articles, then share your interpretations of them with your own network, the way Kyungryul Kim did in 2013.

Many voices will be needed, for many years.

Have a safe holiday.  

I depend on contributions from a small group of donors to keep doing this work. If you can help, visit this page. 

Remembering those who gave all

During this weekend America will honor the sacrifices of those who gave their lives to defend and preserve our freedom and way of life. 

Open the "Memorial Day" tag on this blog, you'll find many stories I've posted in the past. Rather than repeat the same message, I invite you to read my articles from past years.

Just click on this link, then scroll backward from 2024 to 2005.  

As you look at these, I encourage you to read this article about "Project 2025" which is the playbook Republican strategists have in place to reshape America. I included this in my May 2024 Memorial Day message, yet too many voters (and non-voters) still chose Trump and the ultra conservative groups who now are pushing this agenda.

Then, look at this resource, provided by Indivisible, "a grassroots movement with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump and Project 2025 agenda."

I include the Indivisible website along with many others on this page of my Tutor/Mentor library. There are many things we need to do to create a Democratic party that can WIN elections, and WILL push legislation that creates a better America for everyone, not just the wealthy and the privileged. 

Let's work to assure that future Memorial Day celebrations will be in a more progressive, open and democratic United States and not a clone of the fascist governments growing in North Korea, Hungary and Russia. 

Honor those who gave their lives

Next Monday America will honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to this country.  Open the "Memorial Day" tag on this blog, you'll find many stories I've posted in the past. I hope you'll read some of them. 

My message has continually been "Remembering the sacrifices of those who have given their lives, bodies, spirits and loved ones to this country can best be done by making daily commitments to actions that reduce poverty, strife, inequality, conflict and destruction of Mother Earth and other forms of life."

At the right is a graphic that I've used to focus on doing the research and planning that gets us from "here", or where we are now, to "there", or where we want to be in the future.   Find it in this article.

As you look at this, I encourage you to read this article about "Project 2025" which is the playbook Republican strategists have in place to reshape America if they win the Presidency in 2024.   Even if they lose in the November 2024 election, ultra conservative groups will continue to push this agenda.

Is that what our men and women in the Armed Forces gave their lives for?  

Amidst all the parades, picnics, ballgames and family celebrations, find time to do some reading and reflection.  While I hope this leads some to support strategies I've shared since 1993 to help volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs reach K-12 kids in every high poverty neighborhood of America, I hope all will learn more about the threats to the kids I focus on, and to women and girls, and to the basic freedom to worship however we choose, within a pluralistic democracy. 

Thanks for reading. Please share my articles in your networks and follow me on social media networks (see my links here). 

If you can help me pay the bills, please look for information on this page. 

Honoring The Sacrifice - Memorial Day

This weekend we will celebrate Memorial Day, formerly Decoration Day, in the United States. This holiday (last Monday in May) honors those who have died in the nation's wars. It originated during the American Civil War when citizens placed flowers on the graves of those who had been killed in battle. More than a half dozen places have claimed to be the birthplace of the holiday.  (this from article at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Memorial-Day) 

I've posted Memorial Day articles often in past years. Open this link and scroll through these. 

For the past few years democracy in America and the world has come under growing attacks from those who would restrict the freedom of many to serve their own self-interests and bigotry. 

In one section of the Tutor/Mentor library I post links to articles about progressive issues and political reform.  One of my Twitter lists includes more than 200 activists who post information daily showing the problems and pointing to solutions. 

As you approach this weekend, and others throughout the year, consider the role you can take, which I visualize in this graphic.

The large circle on the right side of the graphic represents the links I point to in my blog articles,  and from my library, and my social media posts.  

If you read some of these articles, you become more informed.  If you share these with people in your personal, professional and social networks, you encourage others to get more informed.  And as more people understand the issues and ways they can become involved, more will join the battlefield of former warriors who have given their lives to preserve freedom and democracy.

Never forget. We are creating a future for our own children as well as for those we serve in organized youth tutor, mentor and learning programs.

Honor those who gave their lives by what you do to preserve our freedoms into the future. 

Memorial Day - Remember by Your Service to Others

I spent three years in the US Army from 1968 to 1971, following my graduation from college. I was no hero. I was lucky not to be in a combat zone. I was fortunate to spend time in Baltimore, Washington, DC and in Seoul, South Korea, where I expanded my understanding of the world.

When I returned from South Korea, with my tour of active duty completed, I spent six months working at the Woolco department store in the DeKalb, Illinois area, then came into Chicago and joined the Montgomery Ward company as a retail advertising copywriter.  Over the following 17 years I rose through the ranks and held various management roles in the advertising department between 1980 and 1990.

Leo & Dan - circa 1974

Shortly after joining Wards I was recruited to be part of the company sponsored, volunteer-led, tutoring program that connected employee volunteers with 2nd to 6th grade kids living in the Cabrini Green housing complex, which was located near the Wards headquarters complex where I worked.

I was assigned to work with a 4th grade boy named Leo, and at the end of the first year his mother said to me "He talks about you all the time. You've got to tutor him again next year." I did, and we've stayed connected for the past 45 years.

I've given this 'get involved"
message every year since 1975

At the end of my first year I was also recruited to be part of the committee of volunteers who led the program, then the next year, I was tapped to be the leader. I held that role until 1992 when I and a few others left the original program and formed a new program  (Cabrini Connections) to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have a support system that helped them from 7th grade through high school and beyond.  I led that until 2011.

As we were launching the new kids program a 2nd grade boy named Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in Cabrini Green and the media headlines were demanding that "everyone take responsibility". 

I had been building a list of Chicago non-school tutor/mentor programs since becoming a leader in 1975, using it to invite peers to connect and share ideas on a regular basis, so I knew that no one had a master database of existing programs, thus, no one could lead an on-going communications effort intended to help great tutor/mentor programs reach k-12  youth in all high poverty areas of Chicago. 

So, as we created the new kids program we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  The graphic below visualizes our local commitment to youth in one program and our global commitment to help youth connect with volunteers in other programs throughout Chicago.

I started trying to find ways of using maps in 1993

Over the past 28 years I've continued to lead that effort, with various degrees of success in different years, and also with an on-going series of set-backs and struggles, that ultimately led to the creation of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011, and a decline in what I've been able to accomplish in the years since then. 

Yet, I still maintain a web library and use my blog and newsletters weekly to draw attention to this information and try to motivate others to take meaningful, on-going roles, in helping youth tutor/mentor programs grow in multiple locations.

I created this concept map to show milestones from 1992 through 2019.  In the upper left corner you can find this link, showing milestones from 1965 to 1992.

1990-present time line - open map

The goal of this work has been to help well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school youth programs grow in all high poverty areas of Chicago and other cities around the country. The strategy applies to rural areas and reservations, too, but with different challenges driven by the size of the geography and the low density of the population and pool of potential volunteer mentors.

I'm writing this the week before Memorial Day, which celebrates the  ultimate sacrifices service men and women have made in all wars.  I've posted Veteran's Day and Memorial Day themed articles often since 2005. They all focus on what we can do to honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in foreign wars, from many countries, not just the USA.

I have received various awards and recognition for my years of service, ranging from the Army Commendation Medal in 1975 to an honorary PhD from Illinois Wesleyan in 2001. 

However, the best reward is the "thank you" messages I've received, such as this, and this, from kids and volunteers.

I don't find many people who have been in leadership roles at youth tutor/mentor programs for as long as I have been. I find even fewer who have spent as much time every week for 25 years or longer to help youth tutor/mentor and learning programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood of Chicago or any other place in the country, or the world using the four part strategy I have piloted since 1993.

I keep looking for such people. I also keep looking for a benefactor who will recognize my efforts and provide more than a "thank you" to help me upgrade everything I've been doing, while embedding the Tutor/Mentor Connection/Institute in one or more  universities and/or think tanks.

Thus, this is my Memorial Day 2022 message:

Remembering the sacrifices of those who have given their lives, bodies, spirits and loved ones to this country can be best done by making daily commitments to actions that reduce poverty, strife, inequality, conflict and destruction of Mother Earth and other forms of life.

I hope you've read this and will share it with others as you do your own remembrance.

Here's my FUNDME page. I hope you will help me continue doing this work. 

Memorial Day: Just Don't Forget

They had the courage to
fight and die for their country.

This is Memorial Day 2020. In the paragraphs below I'm reposting an article I wrote in May 2005, the year I started this blog. I've used italics to annotate this with updated comments.

----begin 2005 article ----

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are.

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like (These were stories from 2005 and earlier. Don't they sound like stories from 2020?):

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids. Here are the titles of just a few recent publications that I have links to on T/MC web sites:

Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Work. by Lauren J. Kotloff

One Child Many Needs
A growing number of people understand that, if we want to improve children's education, we must reform the inadequacy and unfairness of our state's school-funding system. But that's only half the work necessary to do the job right, according to a new report by Voices for Illinois Children.

A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, on the Pathways to College Network web site.

These are just a few articles and research reports that can be found in the LINKS and Resources sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.
(I've added many more in the 15 years since 2005)

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?. Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers. You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

Raising kids is like building
a tall building. 

The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time. In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child.

Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years. For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project. Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades (sadly,  no parades during 2020 Covid19 pandemic), or to the media covering them? It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement.

October 15, 1992

In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections (which I led until 2011) and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (which I still lead via Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC) a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green.

This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers. On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action"

In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities are not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world.

Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

What do you think?

----- end 2005 article -----

Planning needed to win war on poverty. 

In the 15 years, and 15 Memorial Days, since I wrote this article I've posted more than 1000 additional articles with similar goals.  In 2005 I was not yet embedding graphics into my articles. I had not yet started using concept maps.

We had not yet built the interactive, map-base Chicago tutor/mentor programs locator.

Interns had not yet begun to study the ideas I was sharing and then create their own interpretations, using flash animation, blogs, videos and Prezi to communicate their ideas.

We've had three Presidential elections since then and have had three Mayors in Chicago. Yet, inequality and poverty are as entrenched in America as they ever were in the past.

One of the challenges that prevents more people from embracing these ideas is that there's too much information.  1000 blog articles over 15 years is too much to digest. 2000 links in a web library is too much. I wrote this "information overload" article in 2012 and updated it in 2019. 

And I wrote this "Engaging youth in time of Covid19" article just a few weeks ago.  The solution to information overload is life-long learning, starting when adults are kids entering first grade.

How do we reach more places?

I included the graphic at the right in an article I titled "Tipping Point - Growing and Supporting Future Leaders"   It uses a map to visualize the need to embed the learning strategies I'm describing in thousands of locations, with many groups thinking about these ideas and writing articles like mine.

The best way to honor the memory of the lives sacrificed in past wars is to do the work that ends poverty and prevents future wars.

I'm on social media at these sites. I look forward to connecting with you and your networks.

If you want to contribute to help me pay the bills, visit this page.

Honoring Fallen Soldiers by the Efforts of the Living

During this weekend America honors the sacrifice of those who have given their lives to defend and preserve our freedom and way of life.  

I've written blog articles on this weekend almost every year since 2005. Rather than repeat the same song, I invite you to read the messages from past years. 

Just click on this link, then scroll backward from 2015 to 2005.  

Honoring Heroes By How We Live Future

Below is a photo I took while stationed in South Korea with the US Army in 1969. It's from their National Cemetery, honoring their war dead.

I've written a number of articles on Memorial Day Weekend since I started this blog in 2005. Some are here. Others are here. My photo is a sad reminder that young people have been dying for their countries since the beginning of time.

I created this image in the mid-2000s to illustrate how much I was committed to helping find the money and talent to operate Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), with a goal that others would be willing to make equal commitments to my own.

I used this graphic in this 2010 article along with a graphic from the Boston Indicators Project web site.

I realize that people have many causes that they care about. Thus, my goal is that some of the people in Chicago and across the globe, budget part of their time, talent and dollars to help end poverty and close the opportunity gap for kids, by helping them connect with a wide range of adults who help them through school and into jobs and careers.

The challenge I pose is "How much are you willing to sacrifice?" to solve some of the complex problems that our generation is passing on to future generations. Charitable giving in the US averages less than 2.5% percent of total income (see info). Visit this page to view a pie chart showing giving to various sectors.

According to this article, "The average dollar amount given to charity by wealthy donors increased to $68,580 from $53,519 in 2011, But average giving as a percentage of household income decreased by one percentage point as increases in income levels outpaced increases in charitable giving among this high net worth demographic."

As you look at the pie chart above, look at what percent of giving is focused on health, environment, education and human services and what percent really goes to non profits that benefit the wealthy. This Chronicle of Philanthropy article illustrates how giving by the wealthy contributes to inequity in America.

During this weekend's celebration we are honoring those who gave 100% to defend our freedoms and values. What will it take to dramatically increase the number who sacrifice even 10 to 15% of income or wealth to reduce the problems we are passing on to future generations?

If our founders took this perspective, would we be celebrating our freedom tomorrow?

In the past week I've posted information about a report from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, and a rebuttal from the Editorial Board of the Chicago SunTimes.

I reviewed the Civic Committee report last night. In the concluding remarks the business committee report says "We cannot change the fact that some CPS students start school at a disadvantage. But we can change the fact that Chicago's schools do too little to overcome that disadvantage."

If a business leader went to his boss and said, "we can't expand our market share because a competitor is doing something better than we are" that boss would soon find a new leader to find a way to compete more effectively.

If the founders of this country had said "we can't challenge the rule of King George", where would be we today?

The business community is right. "Chicago should offer school families more and better choices." This includes more and better non-school learning opportunities in the neighborhoods, and more vocational learning and mentoring in the workplaces. Not just more charter schools.

The SunTimes is also right, "we need to think outside of the box". We need to make the learning, mentoring and achievement of all kids a responsibility of the business community, the faith community, and people who live in the suburbs surrounding Chicago who draw wealth from the city, and who have their own growing pockets of poverty and poorly performing schools.

Until our business and community leaders realize that they must do more to influence what happens in the non - school hours to prepare kids for school, and for work, we'll not only fail to make much of an impact on how well teachers are able to teach, but we'll also continue to loose competitive advantage with countries over seas who are doing a better job preparing kids for 21st century careers.

Best Memorial. Get involved and stay involved.

I posted this message on my blog at Fox Chicago TV, and would like to post it in hundreds of other places. Maybe you can help me, by passing this message on.



As we head into this holiday weekend, there will be thousands of parades, speeches, blogs and other services giving recognition to the men and women who have sacrificed their lives and bodies for the freedom we enjoy. As a veteran, who was lucky enough to go through my three years in the Army with nothing more than a few hangovers, I appreciate these memorials.

However, as a commander, in the War against Poverty, I want to add my own message.

Leaders Wanted

I've spent 35 years leading a volunteer based tutor/mentor program in Chicago, connecting inner city youth with workplace volunteers. I've given much of my time, talent, income, savings, and family life, to this cause. I've spent weekends, evenings, lunch hours, Sunday mornings, holidays, and other precious moments, trying to find ways to make tutoring/mentoring programs have a greater impact on the kids and volunteers in my own programs, and in other areas of the Chicago region where kids need these programs.

Thus as I've written my blog articles each Memorial Day and Labor Day and Veterans Day for the past few years, my message has been the same.

How much are people who don't live in poverty, or who lead businesses, faith groups, political organizations and/or media willing to sacrifice, every day of the year, to make sure kids living in high poverty neighborhoods have an expanded network of support that a tutor/mentor program like Cabrini Connections, or like others you can see in our Program Locator database.



Many of the men and women coming back from service overseas will be coming back to the neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed. Not having enough supports for their children, siblings, and neighborhoods is just one more problem that our veterans will face. We must do better than this and it won't happen without consistent sacrifice and service for many years and in many places.

Most of the men and women in service have learned to use maps to understand where the enemy is located, and to plan the distribution of troops, supplies, etc. We want to teach leaders in this War on Poverty to use maps, the same way generals do.

If you agree and want to get involved, come to the Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference next Thursday and Friday, May 28 and 29, in Chicago.

Or reach out to a tutor/mentor program with a donation to help them do their work.

Honoring 9/11

As we remember the past, and pray that it does not repeat in the future, my hope is that we find more people in this world who will adopt the "If it is to be, it is up to me" slogan that I borrowed from my friend Merri Dee of WGN TV when I first heard her speak in 1993.

We can honor those who sacrifice by our own sacrifices to create a better world for our children, and for the children of those who live in distressed situations. If we don't find ways to put more than token time, talent and dollars into such efforts, the past will repeat, perhaps with even greater furry.

I have written articles with this same theme over the past 3 years. If you search for the word "remember" in the search bar on this page you'll find those articles. I'm sure that many, many people are giving the same message today.

Last week I wrote about the 1992 shooting death of Dantrell Davis, and showed the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago SunTimes. Just like 9 /11, this is a daily reminder of the work that I need to do to try to create a better future for my own children and future grandchildren.

I hope many of you feel the same way.

As we remember our heroes this weekend....think of the battles still to be won

Over the next few days people throughout America will honor the memory of men and women who have fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy. We have the right to share ideas on blogs like this only because men and women have died to give us those rights. Never forget.

However, the battles that have been fought are not over. We are still in a shooting war overseas. We're threatened by terror every day. Our global environmental crisis is a growing enemy. And far too many people live in poverty in the US, and around the world. This poverty is a breeding ground for new forms of terror.

How do we stop this? Where are the heroes of tomorrow who will fight on the battlefields of ideas and social justice?

I lead a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in which adults from many different business backgrounds volunteer time each week to serve as tutors, mentors, organizers, activity leaders, fund raisers, etc. to help kids living in the Cabrini-Green area of Chicago. To me, these volunteers are heroes. So are the kids who make an effort to be here every week.

However, while I lead a single program in one neighborhood, I know that programs like this are needed in neighborhoods all over the Chicago region, and in other big cities all over the country. I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to try to help mobilize resources to support the growth of such programs.

There have been many volunteers who have helped the T/MC over the past 15 years. There have been a growing number of interns who have also helped. I create a page listing different projects that students and volunteers have been doing to help the T/MC.

To me, these people who devote their talent to helping us mobilize volunteers and raise dollars are also heroes. We need more of them. We need millions of them.

We can reduce the number of men and women who die on future battlefields, if we increase the number who sacrifice time and talent to help end poverty and correct the many social injustices that exist in this world.

As you celebrate and honor our fallen warriors, I encourage you to also look for ways to donate your time and talent to these other battlefields in the coming months and years.

If you'd like to know more, come to the Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago next weekend, May 29 and 30.

Memorial Day - Keeping Commitments

See Animation of graphic

Earlier this week I wrote ENOUGH is ENOUGH. A week before that I wrote about another shooting in Chicago. I've often pointed to comprehensive, mentor rich neighborhood programs as places that can surround youth with a network of adults and enriched learning opportunities, and can compete with the negative influences in the neighborhoods where the shootings take place.

I've also written that there are too few such programs, and too few leaders with a comprehensive strategy to change the availability of programs.

As you browse the internet over the weekend, I encourage you to reflect on the Tutor/Mentor Connection Strategy which I've begun to outline, using a concept mapping tool.

At the same time, consider the actions outlined below:

If we want to stop this violence, we have to act now, and keep acting to solve this problem for many years. We have to think spatially, that is, look at the entire city and suburban problem, not just one neighborhood. At the same time, we need to act locally, because none of us has the time, or the resources to help each of the kids in the entire Chicago region who live in neighborhoods where poverty is the root cause of the violence.

Here are some ways to remind yourself. Think of ENOUGH, is ENOUGH

E – educate yourself – most of us do not live in high poverty neighborhoods, so we only understand the root causes of senseless shootings from what we read in newspapers. We also only read negative news in the media, so we’re not really well informed on where these events are taking place most frequently. Finally, while there is a perception that there are plenty of youth programs, we really don’t have a good understanding of the distribution of different types of youth programs, to different age groups, in different zip codes. The only way this will change is if each of us pledges to spend one hour a week reading books, articles and web reports, that illustrate the root causes of these shootings, or of poor performance in schools. Through our learning we can draw ideas that we use in our own actions. We can also begin to contribute information that other people use to support their own decision making.

N – engage your network – find ways to draw others who you know into this shared understanding. Recognize people who volunteer time and talent, or who help kids through the programs they operate. If you are a business leader, or a church leader, engage your corporation or your congregation. You can use your web site, advertising, point of purchase materials, etc. to point to web sites that show all of the agencies in the city who do tutoring/mentoring, such as www.tutormentorconnection.org. If you do this weekly, year after year, your friends, coworkers and customers will become involved in solving this problem with you.

O – offer help, don’t wait to be asked. As you build your understanding of where poverty is most concentrated, and what social services are in those areas, choose a neighborhood, and reach out with offers of time, as a volunteer, talent, help build a web site, do the accounting, or offer Public relations services, and dollars, if the web site of an organization shows they do good work, you don’t need to ask for a proposal of h ow they would spend your donation, you need to send them a donation so they can keep doing that good work

U – build a shared understanding. Form groups of peers to share reading and learning assignments, just as you meet every Sunday to read passages of scripture and build the group’s understanding of the Word of God. Use the many different resources of the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org library as the starting point for your search for wisdom, and understanding.

G – give until it feels good – people who generously donate time and dollars to causes they believe in feel good about their giving. If we’re going surround kids living in poverty dominated neighborhoods with extra learning and adult mentoring networks, donors will need to give more than random contributions of time, dollars and talent. On the Bolder Giving web site (http://www.boldergiving.org/) donors are inspired to give to their full potential and those giving 50% or more are given recognition. Can we inspire donors who support youth services to give at this level?

H – form habits of learning, and pass these on to your kids. Imagine how much more successful teachers were if youth came to school every day asking questions about where to find information, or how to understand information they had researched on the Internet the previous day? We can model that habit if we build it into our own activity. Keep a chart, such as the OHATS on the Tutor/mentor connection web site, where you can document actions you take each week to same sure that this time ENOUGH, really means ENOUGH.

If you document actions, you can review what you’ve done at the end of each month, and each year, and begin to see a growing mountain of actions you have taken to solve this problem. Some of these will be actions that got other people involved, so that the good work you do is multiplying because of the good work others are also doing.

Through this process you help build this shared understanding, which will lead to better public policy. Without this habit of learning, and without learning to use the Internet to find good ideas from people in all parts of the world, we won’t be able to problem solve as well as we need to, and we won’t be able to teach this habit to our kids.

If we do this, we’ll not only reduce the root causes of youth on youth violence, we’ll also address one of the growing issues facing America in a global economy. We will begin to create a nation of learners, problem solvers, creative thinkers and innovators, who use learning and information as the basis of creating opportunity and keeping America great.

If you know of a tutor/mentor program operating in your neighborhood, see if it is listed in the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org. If not, ask the program to contact the T/MC. Together we can create a shared library of knowledge, that helps us all understand where we have enough services, and where there are neighborhoods without services.

Veterans Day salute to service and sacrifice

It’s Veteran’s Day today. I’m writing thank you letters that I’ve fallen behind on and I was inspired to write this post.

I’m a Veteran in two ways. I served in the Army from 1968-71 and I’ve served in the war on poverty as leader of a tutor/mentor program from 1974 till today. I’m proud of both.

Service requires sacrifice. It’s easy to understand the level of sacrifice given on the battlefield. Yet when I was coming back from Korea in 1971, I felt that my service to my country was not as important because I was not on the battlefield. Over the years, I’ve changed my mind through my leadership of a tutor/mentor program. For the soldiers on the front line to do their job, soldiers behind the scenes need to do their jobs, too.

In our war on poverty the volunteers who connect directly with teens as tutors/mentors, and the people who staff tutor/mentor programs are in combat every day. They can tell you the horror stories and the sacrifices they make to help kids who need many types of support to succeed in school in neighborhoods where many expectations and role models support different aspirations.

What I've learned is that while we need tutors/mentors, we also need many other volunteers who provide their time as leaders, organizers, web site developers, fund raisers, and as a donors. If non profit tutor/mentor programs can not consistently get this type of infrastructure support, most will not be consistently able to support those who are directly connected with kids.

Thus, as a veteran, I thank everyone who is making donations of time and money to support volunteer based tutor/mentor programs that serve kids living in poverty. I hope you'll look at the level of sacrifice being made by those who give their lives and time to military service, and consider expanding your own level of commitment to helping us end poverty by helping kids move through school and into jobs and careers.

Remembering 9/11 - How much sacrifice is enough?

Today people in the USA and friends from around the world are pausing for a few moments to remember the lives lost in the 9/11 tragedy and in the war on terrorism that has taken place sense then.

Last week we were pausing to remember the Katrina tragedy.

Those of us at Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection add our prayers of hope and remembrance to the families of those directly affected by these events. However, we would like to go a step further.

We'd like to ask everyone to dig a bit deeper and to find a little more time to try to understand the poverty in the world that is a breeding ground for these events. While nature caused the Hurricane, it was poverty that gave us the images of desperate people in New Orleans.

While it is a small group of fanatics fanning the fire of terrorism, it is poverty that provides recruits for these fanatics.

Thus, it's poverty we need to understand and deal with.

In this context, the next question is "how much time, talent and treasure" should one be expected to commit to this war on poverty? In the speeches that will be given today we'll honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. The number of dead will be totaled. In the background will be the number of families and children changed forever because a parent was lost in 9/11 or killed or severely wounded in the years since then.

When we think of this as 100% sacrifice, how do our own daily commitments of time, talent and treasure stack up? I'm not in a position to say what the appropriate level of giving should be. However, I can look in my own mirror every night and feel good about my own efforts.

I'd like to find a way that more people were looking in the mirror every night and doing more than just staring at a pretty face!!

Tonight we'll hold our first orientation for the volunteers who will become tutors/mentors in the 2006-07 Cabrini Connections program. As I talk to them I'll be starting them on a journey that is intended to stretch their involvement beyond two hours a week with one of our teens, to a commitment that draws the heart, body and spirit of a growing number into the efforts it takes to end poverty by helping kids move through school and into jobs/careers.

We promise our kids "we'll do everything we can" to assure that you're starting a job/career by age 25. "Everything" is a lot. It's unconditional effort. It recognizes the potential of unleashing the talent of our volunteers, their friends and families, the people they work with, and the people they pray with or go to football games with, in efforts to end poverty and provide hope.

Our efforts to unleash and focus more of the talents and time of our students, alumni and volunteers are the best memorial to 9/11 that I feel we can offer.

Where does the courage come from to fight the un-winnable fight?

Some times when I am getting up in the morning, or driving to work, I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of the obstacles I face in trying to create a system that would connect kids living in poverty with the adult support they need to help them through school and into jobs and careers by age 25.

I was in the Army, but never in combat. So I don’t know what a soldier might feel when he is told to do a job that seems impossible and will lead to almost certain death. I wonder which fear is worse: being in a World War 1 trench and getting ready to charge a enemy across an open battlefield, or driving in a convoy from one location to another and not knowing when and where a roadside bomb is waiting to end your existence.

I’m sure that the fear these brave souls face each morning as they anticipate their day is much greater than mine as I face my day. Yet, I’m not sure that the battles we fight are any more winnable.

Nor am I sure that it is any less important to do battle on foriegn soil than it is to fight for the heart and soul of a young person living in the battlefield of inner-city poverty. Maybe one of the inner-city teens saved by a tutor or mentor will become the leader who finds a way to build peace through different means than invasion or terror.

During the past week, I’ve hosted a conference in Chicago where nearly 200 tutor/mentor leaders of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs came together to share ideas. Many connections were made. Many ideas were shared. For example, On Friday, a couple of people from a local college and the leader of a local program, told of how they had met through the conference, and might now work together. This is one of many similar connections. I wonder where I’ll find the help to host the next conference in November.

On June 1 Cabrini Connections will host its annual year end dinner. We have 7 seniors graduating this year. We have three teens and one volunteer going to Ireland in August. I have heard from four different alumni this past year, telling me how important Cabrini Connections was to them. We have 56 teens who will be returning in the 2006-07 program, who will need our continued help next year, and for the next 4-5 years. I wonder where the money will come from.

I take the little victories out of my battles and use them to fuel my everyday courage. I try not to think of the huge obstacles, but focus on what needs to be done -- and what I can do -- in the next few moments. At the end of each day, I look back and see the progress I’ve made. I don’t compare it to the size of the mountain of obstacles ahead.

That’s what keeps me going. I do it because it has to be done.

I honor those other people who have similar perserverance in the face of obstacles and who sacrifice their lives for a noble purpose.

Honoring Veterans

I served in the US Army from 1968 to 1971. I was lucky to do time in Korea and not in Viet Nam where so many young people made the ultimate sacrifice.

I think that the best way to honor our veterans is for more people to be willing to make true sacrifices of time, talent and treasure to assure that every person in America has the same hope and opportunity as do the kids of the politicians who vote to send troops overseas to fight and die, but then don't provide funds to support those troops as veterans, or to support the many high poverty communities where poverty is breeding violence, feeding our growing prison industry, and creating two Americas.

Each person needs to look in their own personal mirror to determine what level of giving would be a sacrifice. However, we only need to look at a Military Cemetery, or a Military Hospital to see a standard for comparison.

In past blogs I've talked about how difficult it is for non profits to sustain funding over the long term. That was from the charity perspective. What about the donor perspective? If you want your contributions of time and money to add up to a difference, you need to think of what it took for you to earn that money or talent.

For most of us we were not born to wealth. We had to go to school, perhaps college, then work our way up in a job to the point where we could make charitable gifts. For those who started companies, it took many years of hard work before turning a profit, then expanding the business. For those with inherited wealth, your fathers or grandfathers did the heavy work of earning the money. It's up to you to do the heavy work of making sure the money build a better world.

If you want your dollars to have an impact, pick a charity and a cause and stick with it for many years...or a lifetime. Get to know what they do. Volunteer time if you can. Be an advocate if you can. Help them find others who will add their support to your support. If you jump from cause to cause, or charity to charity, you may feel good about your giving, but those you give to may never be able to sustain their work long enough to do the good that your original donations intended.

If we want world peace, it is not just the responsibility of the peacemakers to do all the work, it is the responsibility of every one who benefits from peace.

We will honor our veterans when more of us take this responsibility as a day to day responsibility.

Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection

An Urgent Call to Action

As we celebrate freedom this weekend and honor the men and women fighting overseas, I hope we'll also honor those who are fighting poverty and terror in America's inner-city neighborhoods.

Below I've posted the first two paragraphs from a call to action article on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site. They state this call to action better than I can.

I hope that after you read this you'll use the links at the left as a path to your own growing involvement in this war on terrorism.
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This Nation must take immediate and decisive action to intervene in the problem of juvenile violence that threatens the safety and security of communities -- and the future of our children -- across the country. Demographic experts predict that juvenile arrests for violent crimes will more than double by the year 2010,1 given population growth projections and trends in juvenile arrests over the past several decades.

There is, however, reason for hope. Juvenile violent crime arrests are increasing, but only a fraction of youth (one-half of 1 percent) is arrested for violent crimes each year. We can interrupt this escalation of violence based on identified positive and negative characteristics -- protective and risk factors -- that are present or lacking in communities, families, schools, peer groups, and individuals. These factors either equip a child with the capacity to become a healthy, productive individual or expose that child to potential involvement in crime and violence. Of equal importance, communities are learning that they can make dramatic changes in delinquency levels by taking steps that successfully reduce the risk factors and strengthen the protective factors in children's lives.

Read the rest of this appeal at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/action/urgent.htm

Memorial Day: Just Don't Forget

This weekend is going to provide a visible opportunity for those who are elected leaders, and those who want to be elected leaders, to use the memory of those who died to preserve democracy to once again show what hypocrites they all are.

Why do I believe this? Because while public figures and media honor those who fought and died in traditional wars, few encourage this same degree of personal sacrifice in the war on poverty, racism, and inequality in America.

Why do I believe this? Because few will use their daily visibility to encourage citizens and corporations to be involved in community service. The volunteer button and donate button on the web sites of most politicians points to a place where you can learn how to help them get elected or stay elected, not to a place where your time, talent and dollars help a youth born in poverty have a pipeline of adult and business support that assures that he will be in a job/career by age 25.

On Monday evening, almost every TV station in America will have a few video clips of local parades and local celebrities who march in these parades. Yet few will point to a place on their own web site where citizens are encouraged to learn about the issues of poverty, or where they can become a volunteer, leader, donor or business partner with a community organization working to help a young person move to a career.

Yet, during the year there will be many occasions where newspapers, TV and/or radio, write stories with headlines like:

These are our children, By JOSEPH R. WALL

Locked Out at a Young Age, By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

Seldom do these stories include web site address where you can read research posted on the Internet by organizations like Chapin Hall Center for Children, Public/Private Ventures or Voices 4 Illinois Kids. Here are the titles of just a few recent publications that I have links to on T/MC web sites:

Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Workby Lauren J. Kotloff

One Child Many Needs
A growing number of people understand that, if we want to improve children's education, we must reform the inadequacy and unfairness of our state's school-funding system. But that's only half the work necessary to do the job right, according to a new report by Voices for Illinois Children.


A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success, on the Pathways to College Network web site.

These are just a few articles and research reports that can be found in the LINKS and Resources sections of http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and http://www.tutormentorexchange.net.

Why we should get involved, only leads to questions of where?, and to how?. Poverty is not something that ends with a sound byte. It takes 25 years for a youth born in poverty today to reach age 25. Statistics show that many inner city kids won't be alive then, many will be in jail, and too many will have dropped out of school and have little hope for a positive future...all because too few leaders today and in the past have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to create a system that reaches these kids and sustains consistent support until they are out of poverty and in careers. You can read some of these statistics on the web site of the Alternative Schools Network of Chicago (http://www.asnchicago.org).

Thus, we need to also point to web sites where complex ideas are being discussed and broken down to components, like job responsibilities are broken down among thousands of contractors who will be building the new Trump Tower in Chicago.

The engineers building the Trump Tower know that first you need a vision, second you need a plan, third you need financing (maybe this comes second), fourth you need a blueprint, and fifth, you start at the foundation, then build the project a floor at a time. In raising kids or ending poverty, the nation has no vision, no plan, no financing, no blueprint, and we're starting all over the place and wondering why we're not being successful.

Random acts of kindness don't build a building and don't raise a child.

Change will only occur when people learn to get involved and stay involved, often repeating the same actions over and over for many years. For instance, giving money to a tutor/mentor program is an action that needs to repeat from year to year. Foundations that provide seed money then expect someone else to sustain the project are wasting money when no donors come forward to build the next stages of the project. Corporations who want better educated workers, or a more diverse workforce, need to fund the pipeline, from preschool all the way to employment. Focusing workplace payroll deduction fund raising on tutor/mentor programs would be one way to provide a consistent flow of dollars into youth serving organizations.

What does this mean to the leaders walking in Monday's parades, or to the media covering them? It means we need to find ways to draw attention to this work every day of the year, not just one day of the year. And we need to use the Internet as a place to host information and connect those who want to help with places where they can be reinforcements. We need to teach reporters, editors, columnist to put web links at the end of each story, so that each story leads to a path of involvement.

In October 1992 when six other volunteers and I created Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, a little boy named Dantrell Davis had just been shot and killed while walking to school in Cabrini Green.

This led to public outrage and full-page stories in Chicago's major newspapers. On the front page of the October 15, 1992 Chicago Sun-Times, the headline was "THE KILLING GROUND". The sub head was "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action" In this front page editorial, the Editor of the Sun-Times wrote, "This isn't something you can let the other guy be indignant over. It's past time for you to take responsibility for solving the problems of Chicago. Please don't let this be someone else's problem. It's yours. It's mine. Let's retake our city and begin working to solve the horribly destructive problems of poverty, hopelessness and racism."

I have this front page posted on the wall outside of my office so that myself and everyone in our organization is reminded of this responsibility every day. Once a year I send this to the Sun-Times to encourage them not to forget.

Yet, I'm disappointed that our media and so few of our leaders are using Memorial Day and other public occasions to keep this memory and this challenge alive. I'm disappointed that our leaders and celebrities not yet using the potential of the Internet to connect those who can help with information that shows why they are needed, where they are needed, how long they need to stay involved, and ways they can contribute time, talent, dollars, to win the war on poverty.

I want to think that at some parade in the future, some of the heroes that we remember on Memorial Day will be people who dedicated their lives to winning the war on poverty in America and in the world.

Maybe if we do that we won't have to have so many young men and women fighting and dying in wars that have their roots in poverty, racism and hopelessness.

What do you think?