ELEVATE

One of the rea­sons I wrote The Other Wes Moore was to high­light the crit­i­cal work ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions around the coun­try are doing on behalf of fam­i­lies, sin­gle par­ents, kids and vet­er­ans. I want to applaud their com­mit­ment and the ser­vices they pro­vide, draw peo­ple who need help to them, and encour­age those who can donate time or funds to the orga­ni­za­tions to do so.

In this space I will be post­ing thoughts and infor­ma­tion from and about these groups.  E-mail me at wes [at] theotherwesmoore.com if you are an orga­ni­za­tion founder, staff mem­ber or vol­un­teer who has some­thing to share.  Here’s an amaz­ing post from Theresa Thomas who is a City Year corps mem­ber with City Year New York.  She has devoted the past year to work­ing in the New York pub­lic school sys­tem with kids who are most at the risk of drop­ping out.  City Year’s motto is “Give a Year.  Change the World.”  Theresa is doing just that.

My name is Theresa Thomas. I am 22 years old. I grad­u­ated from Tem­ple Uni­ver­sity in Philadel­phia last May.  I grew up in Newark, NJ.  My upbring­ing plays a huge role in why I joined City Year.  Nei­ther of my par­ents grad­u­ated from high school. My par­ents had me at a very young age and split up soon after. My mom remar­ried and had four other kids. Grow­ing up, my mom could not focus all her atten­tion on me because she had other kids. I went to a very tight knit school and the teach­ers and other staff mem­bers played a cru­cial role in my upbring­ing. They always made sure I knew about all the extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties the city offered and sup­ported me in many ways. They were able to answer my ques­tions about high school and col­lege. If it weren’t for them I prob­a­bly wouldn’t be where I am today. Although many of my friends went to the same school and inter­acted with the same staff mem­bers, many of my friends are on very dif­fer­ent paths. Some of my clos­est friends and fam­ily mem­bers ended up preg­nant, in jail, and sadly enough some of them were killed at very young ages. Think­ing back I real­ized not every­one received the same sup­port from the teach­ers. Teach­ers were def­i­nitely more invested in those already on the right path. Not many teach­ers at my school poured their hearts out to those that needed it the most. After my uncle and one of my very good friends were killed, I started think­ing a lot about this issue, and it made me want to change my career path from occu­pa­tional ther­apy to edu­ca­tion. I wanted to work with off-track stu­dents who needed the extra push and some­one advo­cat­ing for them.  I wanted to play the same role that many teach­ers played in my life to stu­dents in urban settings.

Senior year, dur­ing one of my fran­tic episodes of try­ing to fig­ure out my life some­one told me about City Year. I imme­di­ately looked it up.  When I found out my pri­mary task would be work­ing with stu­dents who were at risk of drop­ping out, I knew this was the job for me. I imme­di­ately applied and now I’m here, mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in the lives of many stu­dents. For those of you who don’t know, City Year is a National Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tion that unites a diverse group of 17–24 year olds for a year of full time ser­vice in pub­lic schools to com­bat the national dropout cri­sis. We do this by tar­get­ing stu­dents who strug­gle with atten­dance, behav­ior, and course­work such as Math and Eng­lish. Most of the com­mu­ni­ties we work in have a grad­u­a­tion rate of 50% or less. This makes these stu­dents three times more likely to be unem­ployed and eight times more likely to end up in prison than their peers that do grad­u­ate. This is dev­as­tat­ing and this is what we work to reverse while in the schools from 7:45am until 6pm every day. Although my days are very long and some­times stress­ful it is all worth it because I know that I am mak­ing a difference.

I have very high expec­ta­tions for all the stu­dents I work with and I push them well beyond their lim­its. In the begin­ning of the year I started tutor­ing a 6th grade boy name Anto­nio.  Anto­nio strug­gled with read­ing mul­ti­syl­labic words; he entered my ses­sion with a score of %40. Anto­nio also strug­gled with atten­dance and behav­ior. I wanted to work with Anto­nio because I knew he had poten­tial. I recruited Anto­nio into our after-school pro­gram. In doing so I could build a rela­tion­ship with Anto­nio and work with him dur­ing after-school. On days that he did come to school I was able to tutor him twice a day. In less than two months Anto­nio raised his abil­ity to read mul­ti­syl­labic words by 45%. That proved to Anto­nio he was smart and able to suc­ceed if he put his mind to it. He grad­u­ated out of my tutor­ing pro­gram, but was still strug­gling with aca­d­e­mics. Dur­ing after-school he never wanted to do home­work. He even­tu­ally resisted my efforts and stopped com­ing to after-school and his atten­dance was at an all time low miss­ing 2 or 3 days a week, but I refused to give up. Every day I saw him I encour­aged him to come back to after-school and con­tin­u­ously called his mom. Then, when I went on vaca­tion I get a call from another corps member’s phone at the start of after-school. It was Anto­nio telling me he was back in after-school and wanted to know where I was. That call made me more excited than ever to return to work. Ever since Antonio’s return he has been con­sis­tent on atten­dance and has taken sev­eral lead­er­ship roles in after-school. When he didn’t have home­work we got him to do 45 min­utes of test prep for state exams. He even­tu­ally came to us and con­fided in us that he was not only fail­ing math and con­stantly being kicked out of class, but he gen­uinely did not under­stand what was going on and needed our help before the math assess­ment. Anto­nio has been dili­gently work­ing on his aca­d­e­mics with us, and has less behav­ioral infrac­tions. I can­not empha­size enough how proud I am of him.  Anto­nio is not the only stu­dent we work with, many of my cowork­ers have a child like Anto­nio and a story like mine and this is how I know we are mak­ing a difference!

I worked with Net­work for Teach­ing Entre­pre­neur­ship (NFTE) to make sure that all grad­u­at­ing 8th and 12th grade NFTE Bal­ti­more stu­dents received a copy of The Other Wes Moore. Here’s a photo of the stu­dents from For­est Park and Fred­er­ick Dou­glass High Schools who received the books while on a field­trip to New York.

I’m thrilled about the reports I’ve been receiv­ing from NFTE, as well as other orga­ni­za­tions and schools across the coun­try, say­ing that they are assign­ing the book in book groups with their kids, or pro­vid­ing it as a grad­u­a­tion gift to their stu­dents. I’m hon­ored to be a part of their con­ver­sa­tion and celebration!

I want to thank every­one for your tremen­dous sup­port since THE OTHER WES MOORE was pub­lished two weeks ago.  The amount of good wishes you’ve sent my way is hum­bling, and the cre­ativ­ity you’ve used to spread word about the book is amaz­ing!  Please know that it’s work­ing:  On May 16^th, THE OTHER WES MOORE will enter the New York Times Non­fic­tion Best­seller list at #5.  The book also debuted at #5 on this past weekend’s Wall Street Jour­nal best­seller list for their spe­cial weekly spot­light list, Biography/Autobiography.

Please con­tinue to spread the word, post reviews, and share my sched­ule of book sign­ings in 9 U.S. cities through­out the month of May.  I feel the mis­sion of the book spread­ing, and it would not be pos­si­ble with­out your help.

I am elated by the feed­back, the e-mails and let­ters I have received so far.  What I hoped for is com­ing to fruition; that peo­ple under­stand this book is about so much more than a story of two boys’ lives and their dif­fer­ent jour­neys into man­hood.  It is pro­vid­ing hope and resources for the sin­gle moms and dads who are rais­ing a fam­ily on their own; the teach­ers who are work­ing with at-risk youth; the teenagers who know there is a world out­side of the inner-city or rural plains they call home, but don’t know how to scale the walls to get to it; the non-profit orga­ni­za­tions that are on the front­lines of fight­ing for the tomor­row of our nation’s chil­dren each and every day, and for all of us to bet­ter appre­ci­ate our own lives and deci­sions, and our potency in the lives of oth­ers.  I want to reit­er­ate, as I did in the book and in inter­views, this book is not about cast­ing some revi­sion­ist his­tory about the tragic events that led to Wes’ final impris­on­ment or cast­ing doubts about the sen­tenc­ing.  This book is intended to ques­tion why Wes’ fate was sealed long before his judg­ment and what can be done to avoid future tragedies.  As I said in the first few pages of the book, let us not ever for­get the vic­tims of Feb 7, 2000, and all of the chil­dren, wid­ows, moth­ers, broth­ers, sis­ters, and friends on all sides who were left behind because of these choices.  This book is intended to spurn debate and action in all of us.

I received a note from a 14-year-old boy who spent time at a juve­nile deten­tion cen­ter in Mary­land.  He wrote that an older kid told him to read THE OTHER WES MOORE, and he begrudg­ingly did.  He said read­ing the book helped high­light that he does not want to lead a life going in and out of deten­tion facil­i­ties.  He said he now knows what kind of man he wants to be — and that he believes he can be.  I am blessed that he con­tacted me.  I also heard from a woman who told me she was at her wits end with her 15 year old son when she read this book, and since read­ing it, she was reminded why she mustn’t give up on him.  Sto­ries like these are why I wrote this book.

Let’s keep the con­ver­sa­tion going.

Ele­vate,
Wes

I had the priv­i­lege of address­ing the stu­dents at the Eagle Acad­emy in the Bronx on Wednes­day, May 5.  Founded by One Hun­dred Black Men, Inc. and led by my good friend, David Banks, this is an amaz­ing high school whose “mis­sion is a direct response to the urgent need to reverse abysmal grad­u­a­tion and col­lege com­ple­tion rates among young men in urban cen­ters, par­tic­u­larly African-American males. The Eagle Acad­emy Foun­da­tion tai­lored cur­ricu­lum is based on the devel­op­men­tal stages and learn­ing styles of young men as well as the unique chal­lenges fac­ing urban youth.

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

I am pleased to announce a part­ner­ship between the book tour for “The Other Wes Moore” and three national non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, Iraq Afghanistan Vet­er­ans of Amer­ica, the Net­work for Teach­ing Entre­pre­neur­ship, and 100 Black Men of Amer­ica.  There are over 200 orga­ni­za­tions at the back of the book that are all doing won­der­ful things in our com­mu­ni­ties, and I urge you to sup­port them.  I am also excited to high­light these three non-profit part­ners and the fab­u­lous con­tri­bu­tion they are mak­ing to the lives of stu­dents, law enforce­ment and mil­i­tary vet­er­ans, and our com­mu­nity at large.  Please visit these links to learn more:

www.iava.org
www.nfte.com
www.100blackmen.org

Addi­tion­ally, I am hon­ored to announce that two orga­ni­za­tions will receive a por­tion of book pro­ceeds for the life of the book.  One, the US Dream Acad­emy, focuses on assist­ing and cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for chil­dren who have one or both par­ents incar­cer­ated.  The other, City Year, unites young peo­ple of all back­grounds for a year of full-time ser­vice, giv­ing them the skills and oppor­tu­ni­ties to change the world.  I am excited that a por­tion of every book pur­chased will go towards mak­ing sure these orga­ni­za­tions thrive and con­tinue to serve our community.

www.usdreamacademy.org/
www.cityyear.org

We can­not just talk about it, we must be about it.  As Mar­garet Meade said, “Never doubt that a small group of thought­ful, com­mit­ted cit­i­zens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Ele­vate,
Wes