I Have a Dream, too.

As we head into the 2023 MLKing Day weekend, I'd like to encourage all who will do service, to also do learning.  That means spending some time looking at ideas I've been sharing on this blog since 2005.

I led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago from 1974 to 2011. I formed Cabrini Connections in 1993 to help teens from the original 2nd to 6th grade program at the Montgomery Ward HQ in Chicago get the extra support they need from 7th grade through high school, in order to be prepared for college, vocational education, and the next steps to a job and a career.

When kids and volunteers joined us we made one promise: We will do everything we can to assure that each student who joins us will be starting a job/career by age 25. We are only limited by how much our students, volunteers, alumni and supporters are willing to share this responsibility.

I visualize that commitment with graphics like I'm showing in this article.  

Below is a message I shared with volunteers in the tutor/mentor program I was leading to start 2008.

This message can be just as relevant to volunteers in any tutor/mentor program, or to people looking to be elected to city, state and national office. 

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I hope that all of our volunteers have had great holidays and that you are looking forward to continuing your role as a tutor/mentor volunteer at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

I've been a leader of a tutor/mentor program since 1974, and I've learned that every volunteer and student are different, and constantly changing. Thus, while I can provide a structure for your participation, I can't teach you everything you need to know, or everything I've learned. I can try to help you, and your student, form a learning strategy, where you know where to find information, and find help, so that as you meet weekly, you know where to go for ideas to stimulate and support your involvement. 

Last Christmas, Rebecca Parrish (a Cabrini Connections volunteer) gave me the book "The Starfish and the Spider" as a present. As I read it, I realized that this book was describing Cabrini Connections and the role of every volunteer, staff member, and leader. It also describes the role of alumni, and veteran volunteers. 

We are a decentralized organization in which each volunteer is the CEO of his/her own tutoring/mentoring business. We succeed in life by our own efforts and by what we can learn from others. Our networks are important. They expand opportunities, open doors and provide resources. 

As you go through the tutoring year, each volunteer is learning to individualize his/her weekly activities based on the needs of your student, your own abilities and time, and the level of experience you have gained. Veteran volunteers, alumni, staff and coordinators are able to support you with ideas, information, and structure, but it is your own learning and networking with other volunteers that gives you ideas for what you do. 

Each week I'm trying to coach you with this email, with my blogs, and with the information and networks available to you on the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org 

You all already know how difficult it is to motivate many kids to do homework, do extra learning, and take charge of their lives. Imagine how difficult it is for me and the leaders of Cabrini Connections to recruit busy people like our volunteers, and convince them to spend time beyond their weekly tutoring/mentoring, learning how they can become more effective tutors/mentors, or giving help to others who are seeking help. 

Yet, this is the only way we can succeed in keeping the promise we make to our kids. Read more at http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/good-to-great-in-decentralized.html

I thank you all for your involvement in Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. On behalf of our volunteer board of directors, I welcome you back for our 16th year of tutoring/mentoring since January 1993.

Dan Bassill
President/CEO

Cabrini Connections 

Tutor/Mentor Connection 

 ---- end 2008 article --------------------------------- 

In what ways will our elected leaders support the involvement of volunteers, donors, businesses and universities in programs like Cabrini Connections? Will they use maps to build a distribution of resources into every neighborhood where tutor/mentor programs are needed? Will they use their blogs, web sites, public speaking to connect volunteers with non profits in their district, using links to a Program Locator, so volunteers and donors can search for where to get involved? 

Or will the volunteer and donate button on their web site only point to themselves, in an effort to get elected, or stay elected? 

True leadership lifts up everyone. Real Generals understand the need to distribute troops in all places where the enemy is concentrated, and they understand the need to have an infrastructure that supports those troops with food, clothing, pay, training, weapons, etc. so they are better equipped than the enemy.

I created this graphic in 2011 and shared it in this 2012 article.  As you think of helping kids in high poverty areas include data maps and each of these steps in your planning. Next year, and each year after that, celebrate National Mentoring Month and MLKing Day by providing a review of actions you took to help more kids during the previous year and actions you plan to take in the coming year to build on past year progress. 

This graphic illustrates an information based problem solving strategy where groups of people focus on a section of geography where kids need extra help, then look at available information showing how some people have helped similar kids in different places. Then they brainstorm and create and execute their own plan. At the end of the year they review what they've accomplished, look at work others are doing, then launch a plan for the coming year, building on what was done the previous year. See the concept map here and blog article here. 

This type of planning needs to be happening in many places in order to fill all high poverty areas with comprehensive, on-going, birth-to-work mentoring strategies.

Which of our leaders are going to be demonstrating this type of leadership in 2023? Who already is sharing these type of ideas in other places? 

Let's connect.  Find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, LinkedIn, etc. Find links on this page. 

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the weekend. Please make my vision, your vision, too. 

If you want to help Fund T/MI and the work I'm doing, please visit this page and use PayPal to send a contribution.