Telling the Tutor/Mentor Connection Story

As I've mentioned in the past, one of the most difficult parts of my job is to explain the Tutor/Mentor Connection quickly and effectively, while not misleading people into thinking of it as something it's not, such as a simple membership organization. For this reason, we have been working with a number of interns from IIT who are helping us to animate some of our concept maps and links libraries in order to make the information more engaging and straightforward. Check out this animated resource map that our interns Sungjoong and Gunwoong have been working on! I'm currently recording some audio voiceovers that will come up when you first load the page as well as when you scroll over the various page elements.

They're also doing this for our homework help links and Tutor/Mentor Connection strategy map. So check out their progress and be sure to stay tuned for the finished product in a week or so!

This type of project is an example of something that tech savvy volunteers like Sungjoong and Gunwoong can do from a distance. Since we are sharing strategic planning information via our wiki's, anyone, from Seoul to San Fransisco to the South Side can be helping us to build and share knowledge about what we and others are doing to help at-risk kids. What role can you play?

Tutor/Mentor Exchange

As someone who spends more than half of his waking hours working in some capacity to connect at-risk youth with the resources they need to graduate high school, enter college and embark upon meaningful postgraduate careers, I've spent a lot of time researching successful strategies. In all my time here, I'm yet to find a more comprehensive source for information about these topics than www.tutormentorexchange.net With our abundance of websites and other online content such as our blogs, twitter and tutor/mentor program locator, it's easy to overlook www.tutormentorexchange.net. However, to miss out on the valuable tips and strategies here would be to do yourself a disservice, particularly if you're already involved with a youth tutor/mentor program or have been thinking about constructive ways to engage with programs near you.

On this site you can find everything from an extensive How to start a tutor/mentor program tutorial, to strategies for engaging faith communities, hospitals, students, lawyers and business to build resources for your program. Much of the content is informed by our own personal experiences and history running Cabrini Connections as well as our constant networking and information sharing with other programs around the city. There are links to our GIS maps and essays about the many ways that the Tutor/Mentor Connection is trying to build a network of effective, well-distributed and resourced programs in every high-poverty area of the city. Just when you think you've reached a dead end, you realize that an entirely new level of information is just a mouseclick or scroll away.

Therefore, for anyone interested in deepening their knowledge about tangible ways to help kids who could use a hand, please check out http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/ I guarantee you'll stumble upon an idea you've never considered before.

United We Serve

Yesterday President Obama kicked off his new summer volunteerism campaign, United We Serve, which aims to motivate Americans of all stripes to volunteer their time and talents through an online clearinghouse of volunteer opportunties, www.serve.gov. As a volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring organization, we depend on mobilizing passionate volunteers to achieve our mission of helping at-risk Chicagoland youth enter college and careers by the age of 25. However, few of our potential volunteers comprehend the wealth of potential volunteer opportunities at our organization. Beyond mentoring a youth one-on-one or in enrichment activities such as Tech, Writing, or Art Clubs through our Cabrini Connections program, volunteers can help The Tutor/Mentor Connection accomplish it's important aims by serving in the following roles.
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Information Management

Web Researcher and Links Manager —Collect and maintain the information and links on the T/MC Web site. Volunteers search the internet for new links, check existing links and organize online discussions to help people find and use this information.

Event Organization

Chicagoland Tutor/Mentor Volunteer Recruitment Campaign—Work on a year-round basis to develop and implement strategies that recruit volunteers for tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region. Raise funds to support the campaign. Time commitment: approx. 4-6 hours per month

Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference and Volunteer Training—Organize the May and November leadership conferences and eConferences. Provide training, education and support to volunteers, leaders, and business, media and philanthropic partners. Time commitment: approx. 3-6 hours per month

Public Relations

Here are links to some articles about the Tutor/Mentor Connection.
Help us increase the number of people who visit this web site and use this information, and you play a valuable role in helping us connect inner city kids in long-term volunteer-based programs.

Communications—Prepare publications, brochures and other media used to connect youths, volunteers, parents, donors and other stakeholders with each other and the tutor/mentor community. Volunteer roles can be ongoing or project-based. Time commitment varies.

Net-Worker—Actively spread the word about tutoring/mentoring to others through church sermons, Web site links, email, letters, or word-of-mouth. This is the easiest and possibly most important role anyone can take. Just by encouraging someone to visit this Web site you enlarge the army of tutors/mentors and resource builders in Chicago. Time commitment varies.

Blogger—Write about tutoring and mentoring in blogs and forums. Time commitment varies.

Fundraising

Fund raising—Raise funds to support T/MC or other tutor/mentor programs in Chicago. Become a champion of tutoring/mentoring in your company, church or civic organization. Help organize fundraising events, write grant proposals and recruit a network of potential donors. Time commitment varies.

Technology

Technology Planning—Develop and implement the TM/C technology plan. Determine necessary technologies, acquire technologies through a variety of fundraising efforts, and work with Technology Coordinator and volunteers to maximize use of technologies. Time commitment: approx. 4-8 hours per month.

Database and Information Management—Develop and maintain interactive databases used to collect and share information. Volunteers should have extensive experience in database design. Time commitment varies.

GIS Mapping and Training—Build the GIS mapping capacity of T/MC and create a youth apprentice program that teaches teens to create map views and Web pages that show where tutor/mentor programs are needed and where they are located. This is a career development activity. Time commitment: approx. 4-6 hours per month.

Call (312-492-9614) or contact us if you're interested in volunteering. Volunteers can serve more than one role and can also be one-on-one tutor/mentors if they wish.

Anyone can make maps! (That means you!)

For those interested in learning more about the many applications of our free online, tutor/mentor program locator, check out Tutor/Mentor Connection's President/CEO Dan Bassill's blog, where he demonstrates how you can use it to create your own maps that help you better understand the news, the geography of Chicago's many unique neighborhoods and ways to get involved in improving opportunities for the youth of these neighborhoods. In his post, Dan explains how he used the interactive maps to create a map showing the location of failing schools and tutoring/mentoring programs in relation to census data about the amount of poverty in these neighborhoods. This helps him and others make sense of the recent ranking of Washington Park's intersection of State St and 55th as the 2nd most dangerous neighborhood in America. His map shows a clear relationship between increasing amounts of poverty and increasing numbers of underperforming and underresourced schools, while highlighting the few programs that are present in these areas where people like you and I can get involved.

Instead of encouraging people to avoid the neighborhood for fear of being victims of crime, an act that only serves to further isolate and deprive its residents of vital commercial activity and positive media attention, mapping the news in this way helps us to understand what positive steps we can take to help the neighborhood's residents change the violent face of their neighborhood through engaging its youth in constructive tutoring/mentoring activities. Though we may not live in these neighborhoods, we can play a role in helping foster their future success by informing our US and IL state representatives as well as aldermen of the positive benefit of tutor/mentor programs that youth tutoring/mentoring programs are already having in these communities. For example, using the interactive tutor/mentor program locator, you can easily look up your congressional district, see what high poverty neighborhoods fall within its borders and identify programs that are already making a difference there. As a constituent, you can contact your rep and encourage them to support these programs.

For example, residents of some of Chicago's most affluent communities, including: Lincoln Park, The Loop and Oak Park share the same 7th district representative, Danny Davis, as residents of some of Chicago's poorest communities: Austin, Washington Park, Garfield Park and North Lawndale (see map above). As Rep Davis' constituents, residents of these affluent neighborhoods have a uniquely powerful voice that can be used to encourage Rep Davis to support programs like ours. I encourage you to go to www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net and map your congressional district to see who your political neighbors are. You might be surprised!

campusCATALYST and the future of our GIS mapping

So as I've offhandedly mentioned in this blog, over the past dozen or so weeks, a campusCATALYST team of 5 Northwestern students have been working with us to develop a marketing strategy for our GIS mapping capacity. For more information about our use of GIS mapping see my rockstar friend and coworker, Mike Trakan's "Mapping for Justice" blog. Over the past year he has been creating static maps using his GIS skills that help us "tell the rest of the story". That is, in the wake of a tragic shooting or a piece of investigative journalism that highlights high-poverty neighborhoods, Trakan creates maps that can be used to help show leadership strategies that can help individuals and organizations improve their strategy, fundraising and knowledge.

Since the budget for continuing this mapping project has run out and we are struggling to secure funding to keep him on, we had this team of undergraduate consultants, working in tandem with a Kellogg Graduate student, Diego Ibanez, develop an earned income strategy for our use of GIS technology to create a sustainable income that would permit us to contine and hopefully expand our mapping capacity. After a number of meetings with us they decided that the best course of action would be to survey a variety of people affiliated with our organization to see if they would find any value in our mapping were we to offer it via a fee-based service. So they sent out a survey to our databases and received just shy of 100 responses. From these responses and their own marketing coursework and experience, the team concluded that the best course of action would be for us to serve in a consulting role to provide GIS mapping services at a cost of $250/map. They suggested that we market these maps to other non-profit organizations through one-on-one conversations with potential customers.

In order to successfully market these services, they recommended that we create a webpage on www.tutormentorconnection.org dedicated to selling our mapping services that clearly lays out our services and their cost. One major finding of their survey was that many potential customers are unclear about the benefits of using this mapping technology to their organization. For this reason, we should include testimonials and examples of how this analysis can be utilized to benefit their organization. This site should also have examples of ways that organizations can benefit by utilizing our maps to help us make our case. They also advocate clearly connecting these mapping services to the underlying mission of the T/MC in order to justify to potential clients why we're offering this service. Since we are going to be marketing these maps primarily via one-on-one conversations with potential client organizations, I think this is particularly important, particularly given that it's rarely clear at first glance how exactly GIS mapping relates to our underlying mission. I for one constantly find myself explaining the many ways that GIS mapping helps our organization try to more effectively tell our story and develop leadership strategies that bring in volunteers, dollars, policy change and media awareness. For more info, stay tuned, or check out Mike Trakan's blog at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com/

Fundraising: Cause Marketing 3

So in my quest to find out more about cause marketing, I've found a plethora of resources on a website called...big surprise here... www.causemarketingforum.com This is an excellent resources for folks like me who want to find out more without having to wade through tons of MBA marketing jargon. I've found their best practices section particularly interesting. With articles such as "The Ten Commandments of Cause-Related Marketing", case studies and conversations with cause marketers on both the nonprofit and corporate sides of these partnerships, this site is a great resource.

As someone with little business or marketing background at all, poking around on this site was a fairly eye-opening experience. For instance in The Ten Commandments of Cause-Related Marketing the author, Kurt Aschermann, Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director of Corporate Opportunities Group at the Boys & Girls Club of America, emphasizes the mutual benefit of cause-marketing. He points out that, though there may be some money to be had through traditional philanthropic requests such as foundation grants and workplace giving campaigns, the real money in a corporation is in their sales and marketing departments. Thus, if a non-profit can make the case that a cause-based partnership is good for business and not just pure charity, a whole new world of resources opens up. For Aschermann, who has had incredible success securing over $100 million worth of resources from a wide variety of companies, cause-related marketing is a simple partnership. Successful partnerships occur when both sides understand what they have to bring to the table. Knowing the unique value of our brand as a nonprofit and our ability to execute and our ability to articulate this to the corporation is what makes partnering with us worthwhile to a corporation.

For us, we bring 30+ years of experience in the youth tutoring/mentoring community and our position as a convener of leaders of over 150 tutoring/mentoring programs around the city. Given our leadership role in the Chicagoland tutor/mentor community, and our organizational history, corporations looking to maximize their impact through a city-wide strategy would benefit from engaging with our organization rather than any individual standalone program. We also have tools such as our Interactive Tutor/Mentor Program Locator that make it easy for companies to visualize potential leadership strategies using GIS mapping and determine the most effective course of action. Our focus on providing easily accessible, useful and constantly updated online resources via our numerous websites, means that we have a much higher level of visibility than other programs as can be seen by our high levels of web traffic and the fact that our websites and blogs are among the first hits that come up when you google keywords such as "tutor", "mentor", "golf benefit" and many many more. Plus our reputation as an organization dedicated to building not only our own organization but ensuring that comprehensive youth programs like ours across the city have the resources they need means that we have the kind of reputation that corporations looking to improve their image would want to associate with. Finally, our particular cause, helping inner-city kids succeed, is one that needs little justfication or explanation to most people. The grand majority of people understand the need for programs like ours and perceive them as necessary and beneficial without further explanation. For all these reasons and more, it seems that Cabrini Connections, The Tutor/Mentor Connection would be the ideal partner for corporations looking to form cause-marketing partnerships. Now we just need to get on their radar. Any ideas?

NYC Mayor supports youth mentoring...why not Chicago?

During a recent visit to mentoring.org I came upon a press release announcing that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just appointed the nation's first municipal Chief Service Officer to lead volunteer recruitment efforts across the city. During the official announcement, Bloomberg and Diahann Billings-Burford called on New Yorkers to volunteer to mentor at-risk middle schoolers through their first NYC Service initiative, which aims to connect 2000 mentors with inner-city students across the city. Read more details here. In this historic initiative, the Department of Education partnered with a variety of high-profile mentoring organizations and funders to train these new mentors and connect them with children in need. The NYC Service program has three main goals:

::Channel the power of volunteers to address the impacts of the current economic downturn
::Make New York City the easiest city in America in which to serve, and to
::Ensure every young person in New York City is taught about civic engagement and has an opportunity to serve

This large-scale public/private partnership is using the Mayor's office to connect nonprofit tutoring/mentoring organizations with the resources they need to increase their impact. These resources include volunteers, publicity and dollars. At a fundamental level, this is what the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been doing since 1993, albeit without the abundant resources of the Mayor's office.

Given that in his press release, Mayor Bloomberg sets out a major goal of this initiative to be making New York the easiest city in America in which to get involved in mentoring at-risk youth, why hasn't the leader of America's Second City, Mayor Daley, stepped up to the plate and taken him up on his challenge?

Given that Chicago already has an infrastructure in place that is designed to connect tutor/mentor programs city-wide with volunteers, which includes an easy to navigate tutor/mentor program locator that helps potential volunteers find the perfect program for them, it's not like Daley would have to start at square one. He could very easily use the bully pulpit of the mayor's office to inform people about what we're already doing, directing people to our myriad online resources and connect us with funders who could help us dramatically increase our impact on the city. Considering the flak Daley has been getting for his recent parking meter deal and promise to the IOC to take full financial responsibility for the Olympics (a potentially disastrous deal for Chicago taxpayers) this could provide Daley with some sorely-needed political capital and a great opportunity to help make a difference in the lives of thousands of at-risk youth citywide. Thoughts?

Fundraising: Cause Marketing Part 2

So, as promised, here's round 2 of my fundraising series. In this post I want to talk about one way in which we're starting to utilize cause marketing concepts and professionals to benefit our organization. I want to start with the person who introduced me to the term "cause marketing" in the first place, Alla Ioffe, recent DePaul University graduate and founder of the socially conscious Chicago-based events company Pallandrome. We connected through Meagan, our Media Outreach intern who recommended that I chat with Alla about getting Cabrini Connections onboard a potential fundraising event, which has now materialized into a Sunday Funday Party that will take place on Sunday, Sept 20th from 11am to 2pm.

The event, which is completely organized by Alla's firm, will take place at the Windy City Fieldhouse (2367 W Logan Blvd) and will bring together approximately 500 children and their parents for a day of fun, games, snacks and marketing opportunities for companies looking to showcase their back-to-school related goods and services in front of affluent parents and their kids. Like past events, such as her Just Be Cause green business showcase, which took place at the Funky Buddah Lounge not too long ago, her fundraising model is ingenious. She comes up with an idea of an event that will be attractive enough to people to pay to attend and then charges sponsors for tables at the event so that they can promote their products in front of this large, engaged pool of potential customers. Then she donates a chunk of the proceeds to a good cause, like Cabrini Connections.

So at this upcoming event, young families will be lured by the prospect of relay races, food, bounce houses, games and prizes and will pay to come to the Windy City Field House. At the same time, sponsors eager to market their products to parents whose children are running, bouncing, eating, playing...etc will pay for tables in the Field House, providing an additional income stream, plus some added draw for the parents since there will be informative presentations about how to pack healthy lunches, sustainable living, how to encourage kids to live healthily...etc. Plus we, as the showcase organization, will have an opportunity to tell our story and connect with all the attendees, not just the affluent parents who might support our cause, but the socially conscious businesses who may be interested in partnering with us to provide volunteers, publicity, dollars or other types of support.

Therefore Alla, as a cause-based marketer/events planner, serves as the lliason between our non-profit, and the corporate world, connecting us in a mutually beneficial way that provides us with both dollars and positive public relations opportunties while providing the same for the sponsoring organizations, who pay for the opportunity. Since in this current economic climate many nonprofits like ours are trying to sustain our programming with contracting donor bases, dwindling foundation funding and cutbacks in government grants, we should be looking out for opportunities like these to provide much needed general operating funds. For this reason it's particularly important to understand the growing trend of cause marketing which is not only supplementing traditional corporate philanthropy but in increasing cases, replacing it. Stay tuned for part 3.

Fundraising: Cause Marketing

Happy Monday faithful readers! I apologize for the radio silence, I've been dedicating all my time recently to fundraising in order to try to keep our program afloat during this difficult time. However during this time I've found out about a couple things that are worth sharing that both have something to do with...surprise...FUNDRAISING!

So, in my quest to encourage people who support our program to reach into their personal networks and tell the story about what we do to potential donors, I've found that people rarely understand the true ability of their networks to help organizations such as ours. So many times, I find myself explaining that being a mentor is not the only way to help our program make a difference in the lives of inner-city kids and that especially at this juncture, securing the financial resources we need to sustain our program in the short term is perhaps more important. One way I've been trying to get people to support our program is through identifying fundraising opportunities at their workplaces, either through corporate foundations, employee-matching funds or internal giving campaigns. Since the decision to give or not to give is so-often dependent upon personal relationships between the grantor and the grantee, which unfortunately I often find myself lacking, we have had some success using our volunteers and others as middlemen/representatives of our cause to approach their superiors and put a familiar face on our requests for financial support. However, though we try our best to impart on our volunteers a through understanding of their ability to help fundraise and build other resources for our organization, we understand that as volunteer mentors, they are already giving their time and that not everyone is willing to go the extra mile and become an evangelist for our cause at work and in their day-to-day lives. For this reason I was extremely excited to discover that there exists a whole job field dedicated to bridging this gap between non-profit organizations and for-profit companies for their mutual benefit. These people are called cause marketers and according to the journal On Philanthropy, cause marketing sponsorship by American companies is growing at a rapid rate. For example last year 1.52 billion dollars was spent by American companies on cause marketing campaigns.

To make this more concrete, a 2006 study demonstrated that 89% of young American consumers would switch brands of a similar product if a different brand was identified as supporting a "good cause". Additionally this same study found that a majority of people would prefer to work for a company that is considered to be "socially responsible". Based on this and other research with similar findings, companies have been expanding workplace giving programs and "cause-based marketing" in order to retain employees and build market share, while also supporting non-profit organizations that are doing good. One example of a cause-based marketing campaign would be our ongoing "One Dime At A Time" campaign at Chicago-Area Whole Foods stores where if customers bring their own bags, Whole Foods will donate 10 cents to our organization.

Campaigns like these are designed to not only bring valuable dollars to non-profits like ours, but to increase awareness about our program, while at the same time providing Whole Foods with positive public relations, improved customer relations and additional marketing opportunities (because we are also publicizing the campaign). I'll be expanding on this idea throughout the week discussing cause-based marketing more in depth, and our past, present and future experiences with it. Stay Tuned!

Engaging Universities Workshop

So fresh off the heels of our 31st Tutor/Mentor Conference, which we hosted on May 27th and 28th, I feel invigorated. I attended the November Tutor/Mentor Conference but was able to take a more proactive role at this conference due to the fact I already had one under my belt, and was more familiar with the organizational aims of the conference. One highlight was having the opportunity to present my own workshop about Engaging University Communities to help non-profit tutor/mentor programs find many of the resources that they need to sustain and grow themselves.

To help me I brought in a number of friends and colleagues to share their perspectives. First was Molly Day, co-founder and executive director of CampusCATALYST, an organization that engages college and business school students in high-impact, pro-bono consulting projects with local nonprofits. She graduated from NU last year and is currently a PIP fellow. We're actually working currently with a team of campusCATALYST students who are helping us to monetize our static and interactive GIS mapping capacity, found on www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net.

Another friend and PIP fellow who joined us was Ryan Pederson, who currently serves as the Campus Director for the Center for Global Engagement (CGE) at Northwestern University. He graduated from Northwestern University last year where he was heavily involved with the campus chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He discussed some ways that programs can effectively engage faith communities on campus as well as shared some insights he gleaned from working with student leaders through the Center for Global Engagement. He also spoke to the advantages and disadvantages of engaging Greek communities on campus.

We were also lucky enough to be joined by Sue Sowle, who coordinates Project SOAR, a remarkable mentoring program at the McGaw YMCA in Evanston. At McGaw, NU students play integral roles in nearly every aspect of their youth programming, particularly their mentoring program, which is comprised of both paid and volunteer staff recruited from NU via work-study positions that are paid by the university. This provides the YMCA with a reliable source of motivated, intelligent and passionate students who can mentor area youth. Sue spoke about the benefits of their relationship with NU as well as details about how exactly she went about setting it up.

Finally, future Cabrini Connections fellow Bradley Troast and co-chair of the Northwestern Community Development Corps joined us to share his successes with engaging students as volunteers at dozens of non-profit sites around Evanston and Chicago. As a current NU Senior who has headed up a major student-led community service organization he lent a very interesting perspective to the workshop.

As facilitator, I also shared my thoughts about how Cabrini Connections has benefited from intentionally engaging university communties, particulaly Northwestern as half of our full time staff are NU alumni. Through making a point to reach out to the NU community via our ning group: http://nututormentor.ning.com/ and personal networks, we have been able to host our spring Tutor/Mentor Conference at the NU school of law downtown and will be hosting our upcoming November conference at the NU Evanston campus. We've benefited from having a full-time intern in Diana Castaneda via her SESP practicum and a part-time intern Jessica Rockswold who is currently analyzing our students grade cards in order to quantify the impact that our program has had on our students' grades. Besides NU, our Media Outreach intern Meagan Hermanowicz from DePaul has played an essential role in our Public Relations and helping to draw resources to our organization and our steady flow of interns from IIT are constantly helping us to improve our online T/MC content.

All in all, I think this 90 min workshop offered a plethora of resources to its attendees and should be repeated in the coming years. In our struggle to stay afloat in this economy, it's important for tutor/mentor programs like ours to reach out to University communities who often have the human, financial and organizational resources that we need to maximize our impact. Hopefully future workshops can continue to make this case in new ways and taking into account emerging university institutions that hold promise for non-profits such as the Northwestern University Center for Civic Engagment.

Perhaps you'd be interested in sharing your own knowledge/experiences in engaging universities like Northwestern?

Year End Dinner 2009

Last Thursday marked a very special anniversary for me. Having attended the Cabrini Connections 2008 Year-End Dinner, which was my first official event as a future Cabrini Connections employee, the coming and going of this year's Year-End Dinner meant that I've been involved with this remarkable organization for over 1 year! As inspired as I was last year, attending the dinner with my girlfriend, Alyssa, and meeting many of the students, volunteers, board members and their families for the first time, I left this year's dinner with an even greater sense of the importance of our program. Though last year's event was moving, bringing together over 100 people in one room, public housing residents, fortune 500 company executives, students and their families who would never otherwise shared a meal together, this year's event drew well over 200 folks and left everyone who attended with a true appreciation of the importance of our program on not only the kids we serve, but the entire Cabrini-Green community.

We began the evening with a delicious meal of chicken, salad, pasta, rolls, cookies...etc which got everyone talking at the 20+ full tables we had set up for the event. Next the Youth Leadership Council and I premiered our new documentary, simply entitled "Cabrini Connections", which you can stream in its entirety here. If you haven't already checked it out, I would strongly encourage you to follow the link because this movie, which I produced with help from 2 very generous volunteers Matt Lauterbach and Dinesh Sabu as well as Sean, Savon and DeSean of the Youth Leadership Council, features current students interviewing 30 year veteran volunteers, program alumni and concerned community members about the role of our program in the lives of the people we touch.

Next we heard from 3 parents who spoke about the impact that our program has had on their children. DeSean's mother Ms. Norrine Rhodes, Arden's mother Ms. Rhonda Wright and Savon's father Mr. Rodney Clark all gave moving testimony to the effectiveness and importance of our program, which was great to hear directly from the parents. Following the parents' remarks, a couple of our recent graduates, Jonathan Summers and Kenneth Chapman, spoke about the impact their involvement with our program continues to have on them and how much the program means to them. This was one of my highlights of the night because, though it was clear that they weren't 100% comfortable addressing a crowd of 200+ folks (which is completely understandable for young college students), their commitment to our program allowed them to overcome their anxiety and speak from the heart. Similarly, our Administrative coordinator El Da'Sheon Nix, went without a preprepared speech and wrapped the evening up beautifully with a touching play-by-play of some of his personal highlights from the year.

Some other highlights from the night were a dance performance from Yolanda, Breonca, Cierria and Shante, a hilarious play with a positive message performed by the Cabrini Connections Writing Club, a brave & honest poetry reading by 8th grader Ashaunti Roby, an incredible musical performance by 6th grader Ana Tate and a great keynote speech by Dan. Also, I don't want to forget to mention the wonderful job that our student emcees, Raheem, Vontesha and Victoria, did hosting the event.

All in all, last Thursday was truly a night to remember. This year's Dinner served its job of sending us into the summer months with the momentum we need to keep drawing more and more passionate individuals into our organization that will both sustain us and catalyze our constant quest to offer the best, most comprehensive tutoring/mentoring program possible to the kids we serve. They deserve it.

Youth Leadership Council Video!

Hello! I know at least some of you were lucky enough to spend Thursday and Friday at our 31st Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference at the NU School of Law. Hopefully those who attended left on Friday afternoon feeling as energized and hopeful as I did, knowing that all 100+ of us who attended are slowly but surely building a tutoring/mentoring movement that will eventually ensure that every child growing up in poverty has access to high quality tutor/mentor programs in their neighborhood. Anyway, today I wanted to share something very meaningful with you all. It's a video that I produced with the help of Matt Lauterbach, Dinesh Sabu and the Cabrini Connections Youth Leadership Council, Savon Clark, Sean Mayfield and DeSean Hale in particular. Check it out here on youtube.

The goal of this project was to give the Youth Leadership Council one last opportunity to work on a project with lasting impact for the program that would inspire others to get involved over the summer. In order of appearance the video features:
--Cabrini Connections Founder/CEO, Dan Bassill
--Skinner Elementary 8th grader Savon Clark, who interviews his mother Shavonne, a participant of the program back in the 80s.
--Sean Mayfield an 8th grader at Newberry Academy who interviews his mentor, veteran volunteer Allen Tyson, who has been with the program since the 1960s.
--DeSean Hale, a Wells High School Junior, who interviews his mother, longtime Cabrini-Green resident Norrine Rhodes
--LaMonica Garth, Cabrini Connections alumnus and nursing student at Chicago State University. Her sister is Cabrini Connections Senior, Posse and Gates Millenium Scholar, LaFaye Garth

Please let us know what you think about the movie! If you like it, share it with people in your network so that they might find out a little more about the difference we've been making in the lives of students for the last few decades. Hopefully some will be inspired to help support us in this difficult time. See you at the Year end dinner this Thursday where we will be premiering the movie in front of 175+ participants and friends of Cabrini Connections!