Drawing from my archives

 I've spent time over the past months and years (since 2019) digitizing all of the paper files that I had accumulated in leading tutor/mentor programs since 1975 and the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993.  

Yesterday I found a document with comments I'd made in response to a blog exchange held in 2007 with Steve Habib Rose. I show that below and you can view the PDF at this link.

The yellow highlights were my comments to what Steve had written.

I did a search on this blog to see if I'd written about this and, sure enough, found this article from March 4, 2007.  It's titled "Connecting Networks". 

In the first paragraph I wrote "I encourage you to read what Habib Rose is writing about networking and how this relates to connecting volunteers and leaders of tutor/mentor programs to each other."

When I clicked on the link, I found that it was broken. So I went to the Internet Archive, and found the article at this link. 

Then I looked at the TAGs on his blog and found several posts under "Tutor/Mentor Connection".   One is shown below.

These posts remind me of who I was connecting with in past years and how I was trying to build a network of people who would work to help kids in high poverty areas connect with volunteer tutors and mentors and extra learning opportunities in organized, on-going non-school programs. 

Some people I'm able to look up on LinkedIn and re-connect with. Others, like Steve Habib Rose, are no longer with us.  In fact, Steve died suddenly shortly after this blog exchange.  It's a reminder of how difficult it is to create a movement and sustain it for decades.

About the same time as I was connecting with Steve Habib Rose one of my interns gave me a book, titled "The Starfish and the Spider".   I pointed to that on this page of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website.

This book illustrates my role as a catalyst in building a decentralized network of leaders who support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.  My archives, this blog and my website are resources any one can use to draw people together, learn more about issues, see work others are doing, and innovate ways to help youth in their own community.

The final part of  "The Starfish and the Spider" talks about platforms, like eBey, which support millions of users.  If you go through my archives you'll see my efforts to create such platforms.  Most are now archives, except for my website library.  

Most are resources that you can find through your computer and the Internet, if you just make the time to look.

I've about eight boxes of paper files left to digitize, then a lot of organizing work to do. I hope to finish by this time next year.  I'll share some as I go, like I'm doing today. 

As you look at this, ask "Who will keep this resource available after Dan's no longer with us?"   I keep asking the same question.

Connect with me on social media channels (see links here).   

And, if you're able, visit this page and send a contribution, to help me sustain my work.