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.

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?

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. 

Just Don't Forget

Almost every day I'm on social media or working on a letter to supporters and include the message "Read my blog!".  I say "Visit http://tutormentor.blogspot.com and dig through the archives to see what I've been writing for the past 18 years (since I started the blog in 2005)".

Today I took my own advice. I looked at a couple of articles I wrote in 2005 and saw messages that I wish leaders had been seeing and responding to in the years since then.

In October 2005 I wrote an article with this headline: "As charities vie for donations, how can we help donors navigate the choices?" 

---- text from Oct 2005 article ---- Last Wednesday the Chicago Tribune had a front page/back page story devoted to Breast Cancer Month. The goal of the article was to help donors choose which charity to support. It was a great article, and great exposure for Breast Cancer charities.

Among the suggestions to donors was one that said this: Pick a goal. It might be research toward a cure, or advocacy, or patient support services. Then pick a charity that serves that goal and stick with it.

The article quoted Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator who said "We tell donors, if they want to change something in the world, they need to develop a relationship with the charity. Continue to support them over time, so they can keep their costs down and track whether they do what they claim to be doing."

That applies to funding youth tutor/mentor programs, too.

In May, I posted an article showing how difficult it is for non profits to sustain their work because of the inconsistent flow of dollars caused by a system that does not support flexible, long-term problem solving very well.

The Tutor/Mentor Connection focuses on connecting workplace volunteers with inner city kids in long term programs that result in the kids starting jobs/careers by age 25, with the volunteers still connected and helping to set up job interviews.

If a youth joins a program at age 10 it takes 15 years to achieve this goal. Unless donors chose charities that offer this service and stick with them for most of these 15 years, it's not likely that the program will survive long enough to still be a meeting place for a youth and adult at a time when the youth might be looking for help finding a job.

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

Then I looked at this article posted just before Memorial Day, May 2005. It's very relevant, as the nation is ramping up for the 2024 general election.  

--- text from May 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 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.

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? (or those campaigning for 2024 elections?)

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 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.

--- end May 2005 article ---

This is a timeless message. I've embedded that SunTimes image in many article on this blog.  Yet, too few are listening.

That's why I've posted this article today.  I started out saying "read my blog" and I'm finishing by saying "read my blog". 

Then, share it with others using the many communications tools that are available to you.  Do this at least once a month. More often, if you can.

Thanks for reading.

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky and many other places. Please connect. Share these ideas. Carry them forward for the next 20 years.

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.

Why Dishonor Fallen Heroes?

Memorial Day 2021 -  This year is different from every past Memorial Day.   

While we continue to honor those brave men and women who have given their lives to defend and preserve American democracy, we dishonor their efforts by not uncovering and prosecuting the full level of conspiracy behind the attack on the United States Capital on January 6th of this year.

I hope that by this time next year this will have changed. 

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.

Mapping Strategies to Help Youth in Poverty

I'm working on a presentation that I plan to deliver at the June 7 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference which will be held at the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago. Since this is Memorial Day and we're honoring those who gave their lives for their country, perhaps my use of maps will resonate with those who understand how important maps are to fighting enemy forces in many locations, along with how important logistics and supply systems are to making sure our forces are well supported in all of these different places.

Perhaps you can help me.

The map above is one of 13 I've created using the Interactive Tutor/Mentor Program Locator showing different parts of Chicago, and the community areas within each map area. Using data provided by Social IMPACT Research Center at Heartland Alliance, I've shown the number of youth, age 6 to 17 in each community area who are living below the poverty level. I've also shown what percent of the total youth in the age group this represents. Thus, there are 5,023 high poverty youth in Humboldt Park, and this represents 47.8% of the total youth age 6 to 17 in that community area.

It would seem to me that if donors, policy makers and business leaders were looking at this they would say "We need a lot of tutor/mentor programs in that area, just to serve a majority of those youth." I've been trying to maintain a directory of non-school tutor/mentor programs since 1993. Thus, on the map, the green stars represent any organization that I know of that offers some form of volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring during the non school hours. If you go to the interactive Program Locator map, you can zoom into this area, click on the green stars to see who the organization is, and even go to their web site if they have one. You can also sort by age group served and type of program to build a better understanding of how many youth in each age group have access to tutoring/mentoring in this community area.

You can build your own map, showing poverty overlays and poorly performing schools (from 2007 and 2008 information.

Furthermore, you can build a map showing "assets", which are businesses, colleges, hospitals, faith groups, expressways, etc. within that community area. They are assets because they could be working with tutor/mentor program organizers to help each program borrow ideas from others in Chicago and around the world, so they are constantly improving their ability to transform the lives of youth and adult volunteers who join these programs. More than half a million people travel through poverty neighborhoods every day as the transit from their homes in the suburbs to their work in the LOOP. Imagine getting more of those people involved in helping tutor/mentor programs grow in neighborhoods with large numbers of youth in poverty. This PDF provides some instructions on building your own map.



In the presentation I'm working on I'm trying to show how the organizations, youth, families and assets in the neighborhood might learn to use these maps. Most tutor/mentor programs serve fewer than 100 youth on a regular basis. Most don't have a sophisticated marketing team or high profile board members, thus they struggle to get the basic operating resources essential to building strong organizations. Thus, if a neighborhood has 1100 youth, it would take 11 programs to serve 100% of those youth. If you look at the maps for each community area, you can see that many neighborhoods have only a few programs. If you look at the web sites of the existing programs, you will see that some are well organized, and some are loosely structured.

If you were a business team at a big company, you'd be looking for ways to help each of your stores become the best in its area. Thus, if communities can build teams of volunteers from their tutor/mentor programs and their asset base, these teams could be working to find better ways to build a supply system that ensures that each program has the resources it needs to support the youth and volunteers it serves.

Here's what I wrote in the presentation:

If each organization offering tutoring/mentoring will show on its web site how many youth and volunteers are on its active roster, and what type of tutor/mentor service they offer, as well as what age group they serve, this information can be aggregated to show how many youth in a community area are being served.

Thus, if you look at the map showing West Ridge, on the far North side of Chicago, you’d find one organization, yet but 3,191 youth between the age of 6 and 17 living below poverty level. Using the interactive tutor/mentor program locator you can add layers, showing poorly performing schools, and you can refine the list of programs to show specific age groups.

This information shows a clear need for volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in the area, based on poverty levels. Donors should be willing to support the existing organizations and provide funds to help them constantly learn from others and improve what they do so each might be considered “best” in what it does to help youth and volunteers connect and stay connected.

This information even shows more programs are needed, especially close to the two schools shown to be on the State of Illinois Poorly Performing list.

Leaders, volunteers, youth and parents in the neighborhood can use this information and the Tutor/Mentor Connection schedule of events, to reach out to potential resource providers and leaders who have facilities in the community area to educate them a) why tutor/mentor programs are needed and, b) ways they can be consistently engaged in supporting the growth of mentor-rich programs in each community area.

While such groups can meet at the neighborhood level and in on-line, they can also meet at events that connect stakeholders from different parts of the Chicago region, and with others from other cities, creating a greater public awareness that supports the on-going effort of each program in each neighborhood.

Through this process we educate leaders who use their visibility to help increase the flow and distribution of resources needed for ALL tutor/mentor programs in a region to operate.

If leaders are seeking tutor/mentor programs based on where they are needed, based on number of youth living in poverty, the choices of who they support are limited by who operates a program serving youth in that neighborhood. Can we educate more donors to look at your web site, see where you are, who you serve, and what you do, then decide how much and in what ways they want to help you?

Does this make sense to you? Could you write this in a different way that would describe the use of these maps to support a growing number of youth tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods with a large number of youth age 6 to 17 living in poverty? If you want to try, just send me your revised text at tutormentor2 at earthlink dot net.

If you'd like to see all of the maps I've created for this presentation, register to attend the June 7 conference, and keep watching this blog post for updates.

Does your youth-serving org have a blog?

I've been sharing images from the Kumu.io project created by the IVMOOC student team at Indiana University in my last few posts.  Below is another.  This shows participation in the two 2011 conferences. 

I created this after spending time yesterday updating the list of blogs written by tutor/mentor program staff and leaders.  One was by a college student working at Femi Memorial Outreach.  I looked at the 2011 conferences to see if I could find the program and created this image. I circled Femi Memorial Outreach.  You can do the same.  Open the map at this link.

If you search the Femi blog for "tutor/mentor" you'll find a few articles written about the conference. 

In this one she wrote:

Keeping up the Tutor Mentor Connection
If you guys have been keeping up with our posts, you'd know that I mention the Tutor Mentor Institute more than any other organization. When I started working seriously with Femi Memorial Outreach, my first big non-profit conference was sponsored by the Tutor Mentor Institute. I think I learned more in that one, activity packed, day than I had in my first month as an administrator and program developer.

In this one she wrote:

This past Friday I went to the Tutor-Mentor Conference. There was an outstanding turnout from various different education and mentor programs from across the Chicago area. I don't think I fully realized the impact and breadth of education non-profits throughout the Chicago area until Friday.

On the surface, the scene looked like a group of regular people, sleepy eyed, and pounding back cups of coffee as the 8a.m conference began. But, throughout the day people slowly removed their shell and opened up about their projects: executive directors, media relation managers, tutors, and people with projects so new, they hadn't even started yet. The level of enthusiasm was unending.

If you explore the conference participation map you'll find many organizations who participated multiple times.  If you browse the conference tab on this blog, you'll see more than 200 articles.  In a few you'll find links to stories others wrote about their participation.

In 2014 Steve Sewell wrote this article and Valerie Leonard wrote this article.

Kelly Fair of Polished Pebbles wrote this article in 2014. 

I was prompted to look at the list after seeing an announcement from Jeffrey Beckham, Jr., the Executive Director of Chicago Scholars, introducing an article he posted on Substack.com.  It was titled, "The Democracy our Young People Deserve".  I hope you'll read it.

Sadly, my list of blogs has many that are no longer being written and too few from the more than 100 Chicago area youth serving programs on my lists.  

I look at the websites on my list at least once each year, just to make sure the links are working. I'm also trying to find out if they are writing blogs or are using media like Substack.com or YouTube to share their ideas. 

I need your help.  Please look at what local programs are doing and how they are sharing their "What works and what does not work." messages. If you find blog articles or other places where programs are sharing, please send the link to me via LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky or Facebook.

In response to the comment I posted on his article, Jeffrey Beckham, Jr. wrote, "And I deeply agree with your invitation. We need more tutor and mentor leaders telling their stories publicly through blogs and reflection. The narrative must belong to those building hope, not only those creating fear."

I agree.  

Are you hosting events and want to map participation? Visit this page to learn about the open source mapping tool created in 2025 by IVMOOC students at Indiana University.  

Thanks for reading.  If you're able to support my work with a contribution, please visit this page. 

Innovating at the World Wide Coffee Shop

Today in my Twitter feed my friend Simon Ensor, a university professor in France, who I met via the Connected Learning MOOC, #clmooc, posted this article, talking about how he was interacting with people throughout the world.  In the article was the TED talk that I'm showing below.  I hope you'll take time to view it.



In the TED talk the speaker, Steven Johnson,  talks about the English coffee house as a meeting place and spark for innovations that fed the Age of Enlightenment that stretched from 1715 to 1785. He finishes with a story about how a mid 1950s lunchtime conversation of two scientists led to GPS technology that we use every day to find a coffee shop near us.  In one part of the video he talks about how innovation is encouraged by allowing "those with hunches to connect with other people's hunches".

Don't know what I'm talking about? Watch the video. 

Simon's article talks about how difficult it is to engage in conversations with people who we pass in our daily lives and how he has been connecting with people like myself in on-going conversations via the Internet.

His article resonated with me, as many of them do.

I have a stack of business cards in front of me that I've collected over the past few months, and years, representing people I've met via various Chicago events. I've followed up with email and invited most to "have coffee and share ideas" with me, if they are interested.  Some do. Most don't. And even when we do meet, it's like a "one cup stand", not followed up with on-going connections that allow people to share "hunches" and connect with "other people's hunches" in ways that lead to new innovations in how we provide support to youth and families living in poverty, and how such on-going support might lesson the violence in our cities....while providing many other benefits.

I've been attending #ChiHackNight Tuesday evening sessions for a couple of years, and visit their Slack page daily to interact with participants.  Yesterday Isaw mention of this article from the SouthSideWeekly, which is reviewing a "Chicago at a Crossroads" event held recently to brainstorm solutions to violence in Chicago.

In it's critique of last week's event, the article said

The Times “live event,” coming nearly a year after the Memorial Day package, fell short in the same way its coverage did: its assemblage of voices offered no surprises and did little to push the fight against violence forward. After treating themselves to finger food in the venue lobby, its hundred-or-so well-dressed, mostly white attendees went home no closer to solving the gun violence crisis than they were when they arrived, and the perspectives presented on stage went more or less unchallenged. 

I've attended far too many events like this, with high profile talking heads on stage sharing ideas while several hundred in the audience listen. Maybe a few questions get asked. But there's no real interaction. And few event organizers create on-line spaces for participants and speakers to interact following the event.

The "It Takes a Village" concept map above shows my belief that people from all sectors need to be engaged in on-going efforts to reduce the poverty and isolation that feeds the violence we face in Chicago and other cities. In this article I expand on that idea.


The concept map at the right shows sections of the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library, which I started building even before I knew the Internet was a tool. I point to more than 2000 links, organized into four sections, with information and ideas anyone could use to build a deeper understanding of poverty, and to see work being done in some places that could be borrowed and applied in other places.  

Each link represents a group of people who I'd like to be meeting on an on-going basis in a "virtual" coffee shop of ideas and interaction.

When we think of the coffee house as a  meeting place, I feel there's just no realistic way that any of us can meet with more than a tiny fraction of people and ideas, if that's the only format available to us.  I've justified the time I spend on-line since 1998 by the fact that I can meet more people, and have deeper interactions over a period of years than is possible through face-to-face meetings.  We can not only connect with more people, but we can create gardens of ideas, such as our blogs and web libraries, that people from our immediate neighborhood and community, as well as people from around the world, can harvest for their own inspiration and application.

Unfortunately, the trade off is that I meet less often with people in Chicago who are part of this "village".

While I constantly say to people I've met in Chicago, "Let's do coffee and get to know each other", that just does not happen nearly as often as I'd like.  At the same time, while I have conversations with Simon in France, Terry in Kentucky, Kevin in Massachusetts and others from many other places, too few of the people working to help kids in Chicago are in these conversations.

It seems like Chicago is a hub for technology innovation but too many don't use this medium for networking, brainstorming and sharing ideas.  

I keep trying to change that. I'm inspired by people and ideas I keep meeting on-line.

Enough is Enough - Fix How We Elect Leaders

Yesterday I started writing my Memorial Day post and included this front page from the October 1992 Chicago SunTimes.  Before I finished posting I saw the tragic news of another mass murder, this time in a Texas elementary school.

What's the connection? Our elected leaders have done almost nothing to reduce gun violence in America over the past 30 years, even though there are on-going tragedies reminding us that something is very, very wrong.

It's not the huge number of guns, or easy access, though that is one problem.  

It's really how we elect people for Congress and state legislatures.  Until we elect people who are not paid for by wealthy donors or corporate lobbies, like the NRA, we'll never have enough people who provide the type of governance needed to make difficult decisions that help solve the complex problems facing America. 

I've been building a web library since the mid 1990s but only in the past six years have I been aggregating links to websites and articles that focus on fixing our broken Democracy.  

Click here to go to that page. Below are a few websites I'd like to highlight:

Final-Five Voting - Get rid of the party primary - click here
Here's how it's described on the website: "In a Final-Five Voting primary, all candidates running for Congress will appear on a single ballot, and all voters can participate in the primary regardless of whether they are registered with a party." The Final-Five Voting site includes a description of how this differs from Ranked Choice Voting.

Yes, our political system is badly broken. But it doesn't have to be this way.   In this article, Katherine Gehl makes a case for Final-Five Voting

11 Ways to Fix our Broken Democracy - click here
This Sept. 2020 article starts saying,  "The United States has a president who received nearly 3 million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent. Currently, over half the country lives in just nine states, which means that less than half of the population controls 82 percent of the Senate. It also means that Republicans hold a majority in the Senate despite the fact that Democratic senators represent more than half of the American people."

Reclaim the American Dream - click here
From the website's issues page: "Knowledge is power. Change doesn’t happen on its own. It takes ideas. It takes know-how. It takes the confidence you gain from tapping into a network of experience and learning from models of success forged by others. This is what our civic action tool box gives you."

What I value about this website is that it not only clearly shows issues, but it also shows progress being made in different states to pass needed legislation.  Thus, if you're interested in any of the issues they focus on, such as "tools for expanding voter rights" you can find models of legislation that you can bring to your own local representatives. 

These are just a few of the 80+ websites that I point to from this section of the library.  You need to take time to visit these sites, learn about the issues and recommendations, then work to elect people who will make the needed change. 

I've been pushing this boulder uphill for three decades. Not much has changed. Too few are making time for deeper learning that support solving complex problems.

Yet, if we want to stop mass murder in schools, churches, grocery stores, or on the streets of Chicago and other cities, or protect women's rights, minorities, LGBTQ rights, unions, and healthcare, we must have elected leaders willing to stand up to the gun lobby and to wealthy special interests donors.

I'm just a small voice, not heard by many. Here's a Twitter post showing NBA basketball star/coach Steve Kerr, demanding action.

Steve Kerr on today's tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. pic.twitter.com/lsJ8RzPcmC

— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 24, 2022

He needs to finish his rant by saying "go here for more information".  

Too few people are voting, especially in primaries.  This needs to change. There are people smarter than I am who are posting ideas. Visit their sties. Give them your support.  

I dream of a day when we don't wake up to headlines talking about some of these issues.