Barnes & Noble Event 5/26/2010

My first book sign­ing at B&N on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (82nd St and Broad­way) Thurs­day night, May 6, made me feel like a REAL author. A sur­real but won­der­ful and very grat­i­fy­ing expe­ri­ence. Old friends and col­leagues were joined by peo­ple who had read or heard about the book from recent media cov­er­age. We also had three spe­cial speak­ers: Tiara Killings, a 17 year-old from PAL (The Police Ath­letic League), Damian Travier, Direc­tor, Edu­ca­tion and Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment for the Jackie Robin­son Foun­da­tion, and Theresa Thomas, 22, who is just com­plet­ing her City Year.

The part of the book of which I might be most proud, is the Resource Guide in the back. This is a list of over 200 orga­ni­za­tions that are men­tor­ing kids, teach­ing them impor­tant life skills and that they should expect more from them­selves. They are also show­ing kids the impor­tance of giv­ing back to oth­ers around them. I wanted to make sure that those par­ents and kids who read the book and need help have some­place to turn; phil­an­thropists and vol­un­teers who want to reach out, know there are many amaz­ing orga­ni­za­tions wor­thy of their time and assis­tance; and that these orga­ni­za­tions, who are bear­ing much of the bur­den of help­ing our nation’s kids do and be more, are rec­og­nized and applauded. These spe­cial guests, who spoke so pas­sion­ately about the mis­sion of their respec­tive orga­ni­za­tions, got peo­ple thinking.

You can view the full set of Tamer Shibani’s won­der­ful pho­tos on Flickr