Turning Research into Active Problem-Solving

Every month I see a new report showing the impact of concentrated poverty on school performance, health, economic well-being and other issues.  Last year A Better Chicago released a new report titled "State of Chicago Youth, 2025". I wrote about it in this article.  They issues an update in 2026 - click here

Below is a message I've shared often, in different articles, for the past 30+ years.

I’ve been collecting similar information since I became a volunteer tutor in 1973, showing where people need extra help, why, and what type of help could be offered to youth via organized, on-going, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

From 1993 to 2003 I shared this information via printed newsletters. Then on a website since 1998.   I’ve been pointing to that research in articles on this blog since 2005.

I’m sharing a few below. I hope you’ll open the links and take a look, then share the ideas through your own blogs, videos, etc.

Here’s an article where I use maps to show where people need extra help.

It’s one of dozens where I show the four-part, information-based problem-solving strategy that I’ve piloted since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011. It’s one where I point to a section of my library with hundreds of links to articles and research about poverty, racism, inequality and social justice. And, it’s one where I encourage others to share this information in their network, so more people find it and use it.

When I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection the goal was to help every existing tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the operating resources, volunteers and ideas each program needs to grow. Here’s one of many articles that focus on the challenges of finding on-going funding for mentor-based programs.

My leadership of a single volunteer-based tutor/mentor program from 1975 to 1992 and a second program starting in 1993, along with my career in retail advertising with the Montgomery Ward corporation, provided the foundation ideas for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

These experiences led me to understand that organized volunteer-based programs were a way to connect kids in high poverty areas to people, experiences and opportunities that were not readily available in their own family/neighborhoods, due to extreme poverty. Over time, I began to understand this as a form of ‘bridging social capital’ and visualized it in graphics like the one shown below.

Here’s one of many articles where I write about mentoring as a form of social capital.

In my work at Montgomery Ward’s corporate headquarters, from 1973 to 1990, I learned how my department, and other functional teams, supported more than 400 retail stores spread in 40 states. We helped each store be good at attracting customers, selling merchandise and earning a profit. (at least we tried)

Thus, when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection plan in 1993 our initial strategy was to learn what programs existed in Chicago, then to build a public awareness strategy that would attract more attention, volunteers and donors to each program, and to every high poverty neighborhood.

This article shows how we began publishing a Directory of programs in 1994 and how this information was used to support programs.

In this article I describe an on-going information-based planning process, that uses information like I’ve been collecting.

This could be led from institutions who have deep roots in geographic areas, like hospitals, universities, businesses, etc.

To do this research, someone needs to host a library like mine, with lists and directories of youth serving programs, then use that information in an on-going planning, program development and public education and resource generation strategy.

This is a missing step in most of the research I’ve seen for over 25 years. Researchers get the money to do the research and produce a report, with a big event that shares it with the public, but then don't have the money to continue to share that research and draw people together to use it over the following years.  What I do is aggregate links to that research and try to motivate people to use it to support youth tutor/mentor and learning programs in every high poverty area of cities like Chicago.

I encourage you to look at articles, like this, where I point to work being done by Daniel Max Crowley, who I met on LinkedIn.  He calls on universities to go beyond collecting research to helping communities use it. 

Over the past 30 years I've piloted actions that I share on my website and that anyone can borrow and apply in their own geographic area.

While I do find a few who host lists of youth serving programs, and even plot the list on interactive maps, I don’t find any with multi-year public awareness efforts aimed at drawing volunteers and donors to every youth-serving program within their city.  If you know of any who do this, please share the link and I'll add them to my library.

Furthermore, I don’t find any doing the deeper research asking “what youth programs exist in your area”.

Doing such research and maintaining a list of programs is a big job, especially in cities as large as Chicago. That’s why, for many years, I’ve tried to motivate universities to build a Tutor/Mentor Connection-based strategy on their campus. This is one of several articles where I share this invitation. 

Forming a College-Based Tutor/Mentor Connection by Daniel F. Bassill

Here’s an article where I show 30 years of effort to build strategic alliances with universities. You can see a wide range of interactions with many universities, but no long-term initiative led by, and funded by, any university.

Why wasn’t I successful? Money. Reputation. Clout.

I never had much of any of these so when I met with someone at a university, I’d receive polite nods, with a “I’m already over extended. Find a younger professor.”

 The answer: ultra wealthy donors

Here's one of several articles where I show the potential of strategic investment by one or more wealthy donors.  Here's another. 

How might we find such donors? 

They are all around us. Do you watch NFL football games? How often do you hear players praised for their philanthropic work? I posted this on Twitter in 2024 sharing the idea from this post.

What if a university aggregated this information and then used it to recruit a group of athletes who support the same cause, to support a Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy at the university that was building the database of athlete involvement?

What if? What if? What if?

What if you share this article in your networks? Maybe someone will read it and adopt the idea and actually take the next steps.

That’s why I write these articles.

If you're connected to a university, or looking to put your name on a building at your alma mater, I hope you'll make this your mission.

Thanks for reading.  There's a lot here, so bookmark the page and return often.  Then, look me up on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and let's connect.  If you're writing similar articles, which I hope you will, please share them.

Finally, if you're able, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

Competing for Attention. Too Few Resources.

This week I read a five-part story about the demise of Local School Councils (LSC) in Chicago, written by Marcus Flenaugh who was defeated in this week's LSC election when only 30 people out of a school service area of about 27,000 residents took the time to vote.  In the 5th article  he concluded by urging people to mobilize and offered many specific suggestions.

That prompted me to look at a couple of visual essays that show a strategy that involves young people in community-organizing efforts.  

The first outlines a strategy that follows highly visible media stories with student generated stories. click here

The second shows an application of this strategy, focusing on the North Lawndale area of Chicago. click here

Below is the first part of an article I wrote in 2024, which points to similar articles from 2019 and 2012.

---- start 2024 -----

In October 1992, this was the front page of the Chicago SunTimes. 

The headline said "7-Year-Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action".  

I had led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program serving Cabrini-Green 2nd to 6th grade kids since 1975, so this hit hard.  I was in the process of creating a new program to help kids who aged out of the first program after 6th grade have similar support to help them from 7th grade through high school.  We called that program Cabrini Connections and launched it in January 1993. I led it until mid 2011.

However, this shooting was the catalyst for our creating a second program as we launched our site-based program.  That was the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC). It's goal was to help on-going, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs reach K-12 youth in every high poverty area of the Chicago region.

As I write today's article (remember, this was prior to the Nov. 2024 election), most attention is focused on the coming election and a variety of natural and man-made disasters taking place in the USA and the world.  

So how do we get a share of that attention focused on this issue?

click here to read the full article

---------end 2024 article ------

These articles focus on building on-going attention for specific areas of Chicago, or any other city, and in drawing needed resources to organizations and schools in the focus area. Since adults have their hands full, why not enlist youth from local schools and colleges?  

Above is one view created using the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which was created in 2008.  While the Program Locator no longer is active, it remains a model of "what is needed".  View this PDF essay to see some of the features that were included.

Since 2011 I've been using the MappingForJustice blog, created by Mike Traken in 2008, to show ways to use maps to draw more consistent attention to volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in high poverty areas of Chicago.  The strategy can be used to draw attention to local schools and their surrounding community, too.

In this article I included a concept map showing layers of information that need to be included on maps now being built by others.

I also included the concept map in this article.

Since I began trying to harness map-making technology in 1993 the means of creating data maps have simplified dramatically.  However, while I find many maps that show boundaries and indicators (poverty, violence, health disparities, etc.) I don't find many showing existing service providers and I find even fewer adding assets (people who can help) to the map layers.  Or using their maps in on-going stories intended to draw more attention and resources into the map area.

Thus, my "Rest of the Story" essays can still provide some ideas that others can apply.  I hope that happens.

I close many of my articles with this photo of me standing in front of a map of Chicago, and a Chicago Tribune article with a headline of "City Kids at Risk". 

I'd love to find blog articles and newspaper stories with similar photos, showing political leaders, business leaders, sports and entertainment figures, and others in my place.

This could be a photo of a 5th grade boy or girl from a South Chicago  neighborhood!

Thanks for reading.  Connect with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Mastodon, Twitter and other platforms. see links here

And, if you're able, visit this page and make a small contribution to help me pay the bills.

What issues unite us?

The political and cultural issues of the United States are creating growing political divides, and growing "hate" and "distrust" of others. Political violence is creeping in.  I'm seeing more and more signs that we're losing our traditional democracy and gaining a narrow focused dictatorship.

I've used this blog since 2005 and my print and email newsletters since 1993 to focus attention on libraries where people can spend time learning about these issues and finding ways to connect with others who are trying to find a better way.

I use concept maps, like the one below to try to guide people to different sections of my library, which has links to more than 2000 external websites, with their own extensive libraries.

And, I've created visual essays, like this one, to show actions anyone can take to draw attention to the issues and causes that they care about.  Borrow what works for you. Teach it to others.

Unleash Your Personal Power to Make Change Happen by Daniel F. Bassill on Scribd

My own focus for the past 50 years has been to help youth who live in areas of concentrated, persistent poverty, get the extra, on-going support they need to move through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty.

I use visualizations like the one below to illustrate this goal.

The photo at the upper left is from the mid 1990s and the photo at the lower right is when one of those young women came back in 2010 to speak at our year-end graduation.  We're all now connected on Facebook and I'm seeing stories of their own kids finishing high school and college.

The graphic shown below emphasizes the need for long-term programs in high poverty areas of Chicago. If donors recognized this value, and the long-term support needed, my hope is that they would fund on-going general operations of programs who build such support for kids into their core strategies.  A map should show such programs reaching k-12 kids in every high poverty area, not just a few places.

In the lower left corner of this graphic is a  map of the Chicago area, with areas of persistent poverty highlighted.  Since 2005 I've posted more than 280 articles using maps to focus attention on specific areas of Chicago.  I highlight a few in this collection.

In this article I included this map of the United States, showing cities with high concentrations of poverty.  

The dark areas are metros. The orange area within each metro indicates an area of concentrated poverty.  Each of these cities should have a research intermediary that borrows strategies piloted since 1993 by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, who collects and reports information that everyone else in that city can use to supply the resources needed to reach a higher percent of kids in high poverty areas with well-organized, mentor-rich, non-school tutor, mentor and learning programs.

In another article I show a dashboard created by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG) that shows areas of the United States where economic prosperity is more prevalent, and where distressed communities are located.  Below is one view of that dashboard.

Here is a second view, this time centering on the Chicago region, where I've worked for the past 30 years to help volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow.

This map shows that there are many places in the Chicago region and Northwest Indiana that have distressed communities. So do other cities surrounding Lake Michigan, such as Milwaukee and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Waukegan, Illinois, Benton Harbor and cities further East.

If you zoom out, you'll find places all over the country with areas of persistent poverty and/or where economic opportunity is low.

This means people from every one of these cities and states should be talking to each other.  Where is that happening?

So, what's your cause?  Saving democracy? The planet? People in distressed situations?  If someone is building a library like mine, it can be a resource used by anyone, anywhere, to find information about complex issues and ideas for trying to solve those problems.  The blue box in the graphic below illustrates the role of such libraries. 

As I wrote above, the Tutor/Mentor library has more than 2000 links to external websites. Many of those have extensive libraries on their own site.  Each resource I point to represents one, or dozens, of people who work with that organization.  Imagine finding web platforms where people from all of these organizations were connecting regularly to share ideas, build networks and relationship, and create blueprints that show what's needed, and in what sequence, to solve the problem they focus on.

This concept map is an example of a blueprint that could be used in every metro shown on the map above.  In every high poverty zip code all of the supports shown on this map, for each age group, need to be available.  Building the blueprint and getting support for it are two huge challenges.

I wonder if anyone has created a concept map like this showing steps that would reduce the growing conflicts dividing this country.  I'd love to see it.

Thanks for reading.  I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations building libraries and trying to draw viewers to their sites and events.  When I learn about these, I add them to my own library.

For instance, I added the SocialRoots website today. Check it out. 

I encourage them to dig into my blog articles and library and then include these in their own libraries. 

Then, reach out and connect with me on one or more of the social media platforms that I share on this page. 

If you value what I'm sharing and can help, please visit this page and make a contribution to help fund my work. 

What's your problem-solving process look like?

While I've tagged over 130 article on this blog with #planning, probably most of the one-thousand plus articles posted here since 2005 focus on the planning needed to help great, on-going, mentor-rich programs reach K-12 youth in all areas of persistent poverty. 

I show planning steps and information mapping below.  Do you have visualizations like these to show your problem-solving process? 

This concept map highlights steps in an on-going planning process which aims to influence what resource providers, businesses and policy-makers do, not just what kids, educators, program leaders and parents do.  click here to open

Below is another version of this planning process. click here to open

On both concept maps you'll see geographic maps used at the beginning of the planning process.  Unless you define what places you want to help, using a map, you could get a lot of people together, spend a lot of money, and still miss a lot of the places that need help the most.

On both concept maps I show a next step, of gathering available information about the problem, who's already working to solve it, who should be involved in planning and action steps, etc. 

Using that information the Tutor/Mentor Connection (1993-present) began creating maps to show locations of non school, volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in 1993 and to follow media stories about shootings, gangs, or poorly performing schools, with map stories that talked about the availability (or lack) of tutor/mentor programs in the area surrounding the incident.  

My goal has been that maps and the library of programs and research be used by leaders in business, government, colleges, hospitals, faith groups and government to fill high poverty neighborhoods with a wide range of  youth development and workforce development based tutor and mentor programs.
(Read more in this article)

The map below is another example of my use of maps. 

I used these maps in this article. It shows how maps can be used in planning, to identify stakeholders who should be involved in the process.  It should lead to questions such as, "Do we invest in helping existing programs grow?  or, "Do we invest in new start-ups?"  The planning process should provide answers.

Here's another article, titled "Use Maps for Understanding and Serving Areas of Need."

In the concept maps at the top of the page I include links to the research section of the Tutor/Mentor library. It's shown in the map below. click here to open

The small boxes at the bottom of each node contain links to external websites and pages of my library, and to additional concept maps.

My goal has been to expand the information planners had available when developing new solutions to persistent problems.  A research team could dig into my library and the websites I point to when starting a planning process.  Ideally they already would have spent many hours learning what's in the library, so when a grant opportunity or new policy initiative is being discussed, they already know where they can find large amounts of information.

Concept maps can help people navigate this vast library.  Here's one of many articles I've written showing uses of concept map. 

I added two new resources to the research section of the library today.  Below is a view of one page from an extensive "Poverty & Wealth  Inequality" project created by Gene Bellinger, a systems thinking pro who I've learned from for more than a dozen years.  You can see his influence in the planning map shown at the top of this article.  

Open this link to start your journey.  Gene has used AI to create a series of stories and relationship maps, that show a not-to-distant future where the rich and powerful have taken full control. His stories show how people have built a resistance that ultimately overthrows that government and replaces it with one more fully committed to the welfare of all people and the planet. Open the link to start reading the stories and open more and more pages.   

You won't see the interactive graphic shown above until you open the html file that Gene points to in the upper right of the page.   If you open that file you'll find an interactive map. That means you can zoom in to look more closely at different elements. You can click on nodes to read the text. You can create and share your own versions, as I'm doing. 

There's a load of information.  When you open the link to start your journey you'll see a list on the left side of your screen, which I show below.  

Each link on this page opens to a story, with additional maps.  As my #CLMOOC friend Terry Elliot would say, it's like "going down a rabbit hole" of learning. You just keep going deeper and deeper.

View this short video to see Gene Bellinger's introduction to AI Modeling.

Which leads me to the map shown below.  At the top of the third column from the left is a "Project 2025" link.  Click here to open that page. 

If you don't go any further you'll be lost because the concept map shown with the article has so many nodes that it's impossible to read.  However, if you open the html version, as I did, you can zoom in to look more closely at the elements on the map.  For those concerned with the direction the USA is going, this is a valuable map. 

Last week I wrote an article titled "Solving problems? Know the Network."  I pointed to a Power Mapping article that provides steps for learning who you should be connecting with to be able to solve the problem you're trying to solve (or to build the business you're building).  The Project 2025 map is an example of Power Mapping. 

All of this is just part of the first stage of a planning process.  It's really on-going because problem solving is cyclical. As you solve the first problem you face new problems, which require new information, and new people and resources.   Furthermore, this process is at different stages in thousands of places where people are trying to solve the same problem.  If information showing what each group is doing is available in web libraries, planners should be able to learn from each other, and not be constantly "reinventing-the-wheel". 

One of your challenges will be to build this network, then sustain and expand it over many years.  That's Step 1 in the concept map shown below. 

However, it's Step 2 and Step 3 that are more difficult.  Step 2 focuses on generating on-going attention that draws a growing number of people to the library and blogs like mine.  Step 3 focuses on helping people find what they are looking for, understand what they find, and apply what they learn in actions that help solve the problem you're focused on.

If the process works, it leads to Step 4, where planners find lists of organizations to support, or tools to fill voids where new organizations are needed.  The public awareness generated in Step 2 aims to motivate people to volunteer time, talent and dollars supporting youth serving programs in the area planners are focused.  In my case, that's been the Chicago region since 1993.  My list of tutor/mentor programs can be found here. 

I've never had much money for any of this, particularly Steps 2 and 3.  So I've focused on motivating other people to share the message and help build understanding.  It's what faith leaders have done for over 2000 years.  

How might athletes and celebrities support this process?  In February 2024 I wrote this article after watching the NFL annual awards presentation.  I wrote this article in 2023.  These show how athletes in major sports and many celebrities could go beyond the individual charity efforts they support to call greater on-going attention to the needs of entire neighborhoods and cities.  I wondered if anyone was aggregating information about all the foundations and causes athletes and celebrities support, so a  library and Power Map could be created that planners could use to better understand who is, or is not, being served, and who might be able to help draw greater attention to specific issues.   

Is anyone doing this?

7-23-2025 update - read this post by Dave Snowden and you'll see the same thinking as in my planning maps.

Thanks for reading.  Share your thoughts about mapping information libraries with me on LinkedIn, BlueSky and other social media platforms (see links here). 

If you value what I'm sharing please make a contribution to help me pay the bills.  Click here

Drawing attention to tutor/mentor programs

When we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 our goal was to build an information base consisting of "all that was known" of volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs and apply that knowledge to expand the availability and enhance the effectiveness of these services to children throughout the Chicago region. This led to building a list of Chicago area programs that we initially published in a printed Directory (1994-2003), then an on-line Directory (2004-2018) and that we used to invite programs to gather and share ideas through May and November conferences that we hosted in Chicago (1994-2015). It's still available on this page of our website. 

As I wrote in last week's post, the www.tutormentorexchange.net site has been reconfigured after being moved to a new server.  That results in a revised look and feel. But it also meant that I've had to fix a lot of broken links and formatting problems.

Yesterday I updated all the links on the "In the News" page shown in the two graphics posted below.  These are media stories generated through the strategy we launched in 1993.

This page has a long list of stories.  Included is a link to an archive, that shows additional stories, including those that focused more on the Cabrini Connections part of our local-global strategy. 

This media strategy was Step 2 in a 4-part strategy developed in 1993. It's visualized on this concept map.

It's important to keep in mind that when we formed a new organization in late 1992 our first goal was to create a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program that would continued support to 7th graders who had aged out of the program hosted at the Montgomery Ward headquarters in Chicago (which I led from 1975 to October 1992) to help them move through high school.   We named that Cabrini Connections. As we launched that strategy in  January 1993 we were also in the beginning stages of building the second strategy, which became the Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Thus, over the 19 years that I led this two part strategy our first priority was always what we called the "Kids' Connection".  This map shows our location in the Near North part of Chicago and the location of other tutor, mentor and learning programs in other high poverty areas of Chicago.

We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to draw needed resources to EVERY other program in Chicago as a strategy to help draw more of these same resources to OUR OWN program.  The information that has been archived in the Tutor/Mentor library was first intended to support the volunteers, students, leaders and donors of our own program. 

The media stories shown on the "In the News" page and the archive show how successful this strategy was despite having consistent challenges caused by the loss of our major supporter, Montgomery Ward, in 2000, then the economic downturns of the 9/11/2001 attack, and the financial collapse of 2008-10, which led to the split in mid 2011 which led to me forming the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to keep the T/MC available in Chicago and help similar efforts grow in other cities.  

In most of the articles posted on this blog I've encouraged programs in Chicago and in other cities to embrace a "Tutor/Mentor Connection" type strategy and for universities to lead it.  Doing so can draw more support to your own organization, while helping your city fill all high poverty areas with needed youth serving programs.

I hope you'll take time to look at these media stories.  If you can find a similar list of stories created by anyone in your own community, over such a long period of time, please share it.

If not, then why not put together a team and duplicate it. The problems are still with us, and may grow more severe in the coming months and years.  

Share you thoughts and resources with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram and other sites.  See links to my social media on this page.

If you want to recognize, or reward, or support my efforts, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me keep doing this work.

Thank you for reading.  Good luck to you.

"It takes a village" - please share

Last Sunday I shared some videos in this post. These show strategies I've developed over the past 30 years to build and sustain volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs that reach kids in high poverty areas of cities like Chicago and help them through school and into adult lives, with jobs and careers that enable them to raise their own kids free of poverty.

Below is another video that shows how the information and ideas that I collect and share are intended to be used by leaders and workers in many places. 

I'm showing work that was created five and 10 years ago and a strategy that I began developing over 30 years ago when we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago.  

That means, anyone, or MANY, could create new,  updated, improved versions of these, sharing the same information and motivating people in Chicago, or in their own community, to provide the time, talent and votes to implement these strategies.

The ideas I share come from my own experiences and from what I've learned from others.  I led volunteer-based programs from 1975 to 2011 and am now seeing posts on Facebook by alumni of those programs, showing their own kids finishing high school and college.

When donors asked in the 1990s "What are your results?" I could not have predicted this future.  Yet, that's what we were working to achieve.

You can see more of my videos on this page and my visual essays on this page.   Use them as teaching tools and as planning resources, to help you develop your own leadership. 

It takes more than a few leaders and workers and donors.  It takes a village.

I've led this strategy via the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011 and have had only a trickle of dollars to support my efforts.  Yet, the daily news and research reports keep showing that there are millions of people living in areas of persistent poverty who need a "village" of long-term support to help them break that cycle.  Helping their kids through school and into jobs is one way to do that.

The graphic below is on page 21 of this visual essay.   The focus of this essay is how YOU can make a difference, using your own talents and networks.

This slide demonstrates how I've used concept maps to visualize the ideas I'm sharing and how interns from various universities have created their own versions.  Since many of these were created using Flash Animation, which is no longer supported, I've embedded some in my videos, so you can still see the work that was done.

My goal is that others will be inspired to create and share their own versions.  

Thanks for reading.  Please reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram and/or Twitter.  Find links on this page.

And, if you're able, consider making a contribution to help me do this work. Click here. 

Protest music for these times

Last November I stumbled across The Marsh Family singers on Twitter, as they created parody songs to lambast Trump and encourage support for Kamala Harris. I've followed them since, and now find them on BlueSky, too.  This song is titled "Don't Abandon Them" talking about the war in Ukraine.  Listen to it here.
  

You can listened to more of their songs on YouTube.  I hope you'll share them with your network.

This got me thinking about other protest songs. Since I went to college in the 1960s, then the Army from 1968-71, I did a search to find some songs that had resonated with me.

This site has a list of "10 Significant Protest songs of the Viet Nam War".   This site  has a longer list, of 17 top songs. 

It included one by The Animals, titled,  "We Gotta Get Out of this Place" - 1965  click here    

I can remember many evenings when my Acacia fraternity brothers blasted out that song, as we strummed our tennis racket guitars late at night.  

Another on the list was the song by the Plastic Ono Band, titled - "Give Peace a Chance" - 1969 click here

As I thought of these songs I thought back to one that I first heard in 1970 while I was stationed in South Korea.  It was from the play "Hair", and titled "Let the Sun Shine in".   Listen to it here. 

Songs have power. We need them now, to mobilize attention and combat the negative impact of the current President, his Project 2025 backers and out-of-control billionaires. 

More than that, we need songs that mobilize attention and resources to save the planet and stop humans from destroying it and themselves.

So, what were your favorite protest and motivation songs from the past?  What about now?  Share links in the comment section and on social media.

Thanks for reading. Find me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, BlueSky, Twitter and other social media. Find links on this page. 

Maybe someone will even create a song that draws attention to my blog articles and websites and leads to a university adopting my archives and creating a Tutor/Mentor Connection study program on their campus. 

Until then, a song that draws a few more donors to this page would help!  

Super Bowl. Today and Past Articles.

Today's the Super Bowl game. I'm rooting for Philadelphia, since that's where my dad was born and where I have many family members.  For the first time in 50 years I won't be watching the game on TV. I don't want to see images of the current President and his billionaire friends plastered on the TV throughout the game.  I'll listen on the radio.

I started this blog in 2005. The first time I wrote about the Super Bowl game was in January 2007.

Here's some of what I wrote: 

"As I watched this game, I saw men who would be great spokespersons for tutoring/mentoring. For many years I've wanted to get sports groups involved with the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Many athletes come out of poverty neighborhoods, and most have befitted from having many mentors and coaches in their lives.

While many athletes have foundations and do great things to help their communities, there's no strategy that I know of that enlists athletes and coaches in an effort to use their celebrity visibility to draw attention to a social cause, and to draw volunteers and donors to specific neighborhoods throughout a city.

For instance, on the Super Bowl broadcast Terry Bradshaw, a former star quarterback, and current TV broadcaster, made an appeal for viewers to stay involved in helping survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The TV footage focused at New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward, but I heard him end a phrase with "and the other areas".

If someone created a map of the area that had been destroyed by the Hurricane, it would be possible to enlist athletes from many sports to adopt different communities, or zip codes, in the entire area. Then, whenever that athlete were to have a TV opportunity, he/she could draw attention to his zip code, as part of an effort to keep attention on the entire area of destruction. As the season moves from Basketball to baseball to football and back to hockey and basketball, different stars, in different cities, would have many opportunities to focus attention, and draw resources to the various parts of the entire geographic area where volunteers, donors, and all sorts of help will be needed for many years.

In the same way, I want to enlist athletes to focus attention on the high poverty neighborhoods of big cities. Instead of just talking about the Boys and Girls Clubs, or Big Brothers, Big Sisters, or other highly visible charities, we need to focus attention regularly on every neighborhood where kids need help, and the organizations in those neighborhoods who are providing help.

This is a strategy I hope athletes will adopt. If you read this, and you know a Bear, or a Bull, or a college coach, or even a high school coach, who might want to be a champion of this idea, please pass this on.

This is a team game too, just like football. We'll get to the Super Bowl of life if we can get more people to help us."

I've been using the graphic of a team on a football field in many of my Super Bowl and sports-related articles since then.  I encourage you to browse posts at this link and see what I've been writing.

Imagine seeing professional and college athletes standing in front of a map showing high poverty areas in the city where they play, or where they grew up, calling on people from business, philanthropy, faith groups and other sectors to help comprehensive, long-term, volunteer-based tutor, mentor and learning programs grow in dozens of places.

I think many could be creating their own versions of my graphics and articles, and communicating the ideas better.  Because of their visibility as a celebrity, I'm sure more people will take time to look at what they share.

If you think this is a good idea, please share it with your network.  Connect with me on BlueSky, LinkedIn and other on-line spaces (see links here) and share your own strategies.  

And, if you like what I'm sharing, please visit this page and make a contribution to help me pay the bills. 

Thank you!   Go Eagles!