Marry passion to professionalism and the result might very well be the new President and CEO of Communities In Schools of North Carolina, Eric Hall. “I want to put supports and interventions in place at schools so that students will not be displaced. This job gives me the chance to do work that I know is effective in keeping kids in school. It is the perfect integration of my personal and professional missions.”

Hall comes from a family of educators and is currently working on his doctorate in educational leadership. “My parents, aunts and uncles are all teachers, except for one who is a social worker. My belief in the importance of education and the need to have the community involved in the schools is homegrown.”

Newly arrived in January from a job as national director of educational services/regional director with AMIkids, Inc. in Tampa, Fla., Hall has found his transition made much easier by the team he inherited at the Communities In Schools office. “I am so amazed by the team of individuals I get to work with here. They have a long history with the organization and they live to support its mission. They make my job easy. The Board supports the organization by bringing in resources and connecting Communities In Schools to others who can help us accomplish our mission.”

It’s a team he knows he will need to rely on heavily as he and his staff consider how to best position Communities in Schools of North Carolina for the education reform taking place in the state. “We must be prepared to stay true to our mission while staying connected to the schools and the reform effort. We have the opportunity to innovate, to grow into new schools and to be more intentional about what we do in schools where we already have a presence.”

His almost two-decade record of work with AMIkids, a nonprofit organization providing intervention services to at-risk youth in juvenile justice programs and nontraditional schools in nine states, is a solid foundation for his new position. At AMIkids, he led the effort to build school programs for students who need nontraditional services, including those in the juvenile justice system. A key part of his job, as it is at Communities In Schools, was working with partnering organizations to bring in the best possible services for students. Hall believes the work he did in Florida during a time when then Governor Jeb Bush was instituting statewide reform will be valuable experience for dealing with the state reforms being enacted in North Carolina.

One of his greatest achievements at AMIkids, Inc. was collaborating with state and legislative officials to add more than $12 million a year of educational funding to juvenile justice schools. “That funding helped us to bring in educators who had more experience and education working with kids in the juvenile justice system and other nontraditional education settings, and to be more competitive with salaries. So kids were getting a better education.” In the end, that’s what matters most to Hall: ensuring that all kids can get the best education possible.

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools President Dan Cardinali, who writes regularly for The Huffington Post. In his latest post, Cardinali points out the disconnect between the euphoria over the record levels for the Dow or the S&P 500, and the impoverished youth who dare to dream of a brighter future. During a recent visit to Chaparral High School in Las Vegas, 2,500 miles away from Wall Street, Cardinali  was reminded that for some kids, even Main Street looks like a dream destination – and they don’t have the bus fare to get there.

Last week, as Wall Street shattered one record after another, all eyes turned to the future. How long, the commentators wondered, until the Dow hit 18,000, unemployment dropped below 7 percent, or housing values regained their 2006 highs? Good news begets good feelings, and suddenly it seemed okay to dream again.

Meanwhile, I was 2,500 miles away from Wall Street, listening to an entirely different kind of discussion about the future. At Chaparral High School in Las Vegas, about 20 seniors sat at their desks as a guest speaker from the Andson Foundation talked about life after graduation. “Follow your passion,” he urged the students as he related his own journey from Chaparral High to UNLV to a career in financial planning.

So, what exactly did these kids want to do when high school was over? Initially the question was met with shrugs and blank stares, but the speaker wasn’t about to let his listeners off the hook so easily. He pointed to each student individually and repeated his question until the answers began to trickle out. A girl in the front row wanted to be an actress. Just behind her was a boy who dreamed of opening a restaurant, while one of his friends hoped to become a tattoo artist.

The answers were halting and tentative, as if speaking an ambition out loud might somehow jinx its chance of success. For these seniors, “the future” was just days away, yet it seemed they had barely dared to imagine what it might look like or how it might be better than today.

Amid the euphoria of record levels for the Dow or the S&P 500, we occasionally hear from a commentator who points out the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, where the recovery looks more fragile and the future less certain. That’s certainly true, but my visit to Chaparral High School reminded me that for some kids, even Main Street looks like a dream destination — and they don’t have the bus fare to get there.

Far from the glittering lights of the Las Vegas Strip, Chaparral is surrounded by dingy motels that rent rooms by the week. With high unemployment driving a transient population, the school faces nearly a 50 percent turnover rate among its 2,200 students. Principal Dave Wilson managed to boost graduation rates by 15 percent last year — but starting from a baseline of just 34 percent, he still has one of the worst graduation rates in the entire state.

“We graduate fewer than 50 percent of our students, and that’s totally unacceptable,” he told me. “It’s totally unacceptable that half the kids who attend here wouldn’t even be eligible to come back and work as a custodian at this school.”

I was still thinking about that number a few minutes later as I listened to those 20 students discussing their future in the class sponsored by CIS Academy. Each time the speaker pressed for an answer about plans after graduation, it dawned on me that the question itself was a kind of victory. Here was a caring adult challenging them to think about the future — someone who assumed that they had a future and that their dreams mattered.

That’s what we mean at CIS when we say, “It’s relationships, not programs, that change children.” Surrounded with love and support and guidance, these forgotten students had discovered a reason to come back to school each day. Now, with graduation day just around the corner, they’ve already beaten the odds and set their sights, ever so tentatively, on life beyond high school.

For the Chaparral High School Class of 2013, the path ahead might not be clear — but it’s infinitely better than a dead end.

Follow Dan Cardinali on Twitter:

@DanCardinali

The young woman her daughter brought to the house, Middleton explained, is her biggest success story. “Shayla started with me when she was in sixth grade, and I developed a good relationship with her and her family. She has had a lot of challenges, including her academic record and a history of getting into arguments and fights. When she came to my house, I told her what would happen if she continued down the road she was on. Then I told her what her life could be if she chose another road by going to college or into the military. This year is the first year she has not gotten into one single fight, and she’s passing all of her classes. She decided to go into the military after graduation.”

Middleton figured out how to use her illness as a learning tool for her students, said Jane Riley-Gambrell, executive director of Communities In Schools of the Charleston Area. “She visited them between treatments and let them know how much this challenge has made her appreciate life and relationships. Sharing her experience has taught ‘Brenda’s girls’ about resiliency and determination.  At times this spring when Brenda was too ill to go to the school, she sent her daughter to ‘check up.’ Toward the end of her recovery, she made the effort to attend the Senior Students Luncheon, understanding how much it would mean to her students.”

Prior to taking on the job of site coordinator, Middleton was a special education teacher at nearby James Island High School. “I took this job because it gave me a chance to be outside the box a teacher has to be in. Now I can do more to help the kids at my school. I can give my phone number to kids so they can call me if they need help. I can go to their houses or meet them somewhere if they need me.” Having started as a site coordinator at Haut Gap Middle School in 2006, she will watch her first class of sixth graders graduate this year.

“She is a member of the community in which she serves and parents trust her with their children. Brenda understands the culture created by generational poverty in a rural community and the relevance of relationships amongst this population. She makes more home visits than any other site coordinator on our staff,” Gambrell says. “The families that Brenda works with know that she means business when it comes to children attending school and that she will even come to their house and pick them up herself if necessary. She understands their challenges and will not be judgmental.”

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools President Dan Cardinali, who writes regularly for The Huffington Post. In his latest post, Cardinali writes about ”the wisdom of the periphery” – insights learned at the margins of society.

Out of every 100 freshmen entering high school in the U.S., how many do you suppose drop out before they cross the stage on graduation day — 5? 10? Maybe even a dozen?

According to the latest study from America’s Promise Alliance, the actual number is more like 22, and even that depressing figure masks the full extent of the problem in poor communities of color, where dropout rates approach 29 percent among Hispanics and 33 percent for African-Americans.

If you work in public education, you’re already painfully aware of those figures. But when I talk about dropout rates among general audiences at speaking engagements around the country, I often hear an audible gasp.

These audiences are usually well read, socially aware and community minded, yet they have only the vaguest sense of this particular crisis. Dropping out of high school? It’s simply not something that we often encounter in middle class America. Everyone we know — our kids, their friends, our neighbors — finished high school and probably went on to college after that.

How can a problem be so pervasive and so invisible at the same time?

What I’ve found over the years is that problems — and solutions — often look quite different on the periphery. For those of us at the “center” of society, the problems on the periphery can appear smaller because we are physically or psychologically removed from the fallout. We tend to perceive and prioritize things differently when they don’t affect us in a personal way.

That’s why I believe that the best solutions often come from those who have experienced problems close-up, where the difficulties loom larger and the stakes are higher. At the margins of society you can find great insights and wisdom that are easy to miss when you’re in the middle. This is what I call “the wisdom of the periphery,” and it’s a recurring theme I’d like to explore in this space from time to time.

If there is any one individual who taught me the wisdom that comes from working on the margins, it would be Tony Dalton. I met Tony after my first year of college, when I moved to the South Bronx to work with the nuns at an outreach center for Dominican and Puerto Rican families. Several nights a week, I’d go to a nearby parish where the most unlikely community organizer I had ever met operated one of the most effective community centers I had ever seen.

Since 1980, Tony Dalton had run his after-school gym out of an unused church space in Mott Haven, a neighborhood widely regarded as one of the worst in the nation. In the middle of this horrifically violent place, Tony had created a refuge where kids could come for boxing, weightlifting, basketball, or just hanging out — anything, really, to keep them off the streets and out of the gangs that constantly beckoned.

In this tough environment, where the cops patrolled in bulletproof vests, Tony stood out as a strict and loving father figure, if not a local saint. Still, his rough demeanor — and his failing liver — betrayed his own past struggles that he rarely talked about.

I learned over time that Tony had once been a union elevator repairman. It was good work for an uneducated child of the South Bronx, though Tony was known to spend a good portion of his income on drinking and carousing. On a whim, he tagged along with a friend who was doing a service project in Haiti, and the needs that he saw there changed his life.

When he returned to the States, he began spending all of his free time at shelters for runaway teens and battered women. Eventually his avocation turned into a vocation. Tony retired from his job, gave away most of his possessions and his pension and moved into a nearby rectory as he built up his after-school center.

At first I didn’t grasp Tony’s impulse to cut himself off from the economic resources that could have ensured the future of his gym. But as I watched him and talked to him over the course of those months, I began to understand: By ceding his economic power, Tony had structured his life to create greater accountability with those that he served and those whose resources he was stewarding.

In making himself utterly dependent on the community, he fostered greater authenticity and freedom in his relationships with the kids. He never felt entitled to their love, because it wasn’t his “stuff” at the youth center; it was given by the community.

In a nonprofit world where scale and impact are often perceived as a kind of Holy Grail, I still believe there is tremendous value in making ourselves truly vulnerable to the communities we serve. That’s a lesson I learned from Tony Dalton, a hard-living Irishman who first showed me the hard-won wisdom of the periphery.

Follow Dan Cardinali on Twitter:

@DanCardinali

April 21-27 is National Volunteer Week, a time to celebrate people doing extraordinary things through service. National Volunteer Week focuses national attention on the impact and power of volunteerism and service to help strengthen communities. Communities In Schools has nearly 70,000 volunteers across the country. Parents, business and civic leaders, mentors, tutors, board members and AmeriCorps members all give their time to support students, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. Today’s blog post is by Kelly Lindberg, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer who works with Communities In Schools of Lakewood, Wash. 

I am currently the AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer at Pierce College, Lakewood, Wash., where my job duties include promoting service-learning and getting students involved with the community by volunteering. I love it! It has been an amazing opportunity. I look at college students as positive role models to struggling youth, so when I was hired as a VISTA, I came into the job knowing I wanted to get college students involved with the youth in our community.

Through AmeriCorps, I came across an amazing, local organization called Communities In Schools. I met with the executive director of Communities In Schools of Lakewood, and we discussed the potential of having qualified college students, including military veterans, mentoring local youth who may be at risk. This connection had never been made before. After becoming a mentor myself, I decided to start getting the college deans, campus president and faculty involved in creating something for our students to be a part of.

As this school year is coming to an end, we will be starting a collaborative program with Communities In Schools of Lakewood and the Pierce College Fort Steilacoom campus. We will be letting college students make an impact on young student’s lives. It will be an opportunity for both the college students and the youth being mentored to learn from one another.

Our next meeting is with Communities In Schools of Puyallup, where we will hopefully establish a partnership with the Pierce College Puyallup campus. This is something that faculty and students are excited about and they are looking forward to making a difference. It’s a major accomplishment for both the college and the Communities In Schools school sites.

My term as a VISTA volunteer will be up in the fall. Working with Communities in Schools has impacted my own personal life in so many ways. I can see myself working with Communities In Schools while finishing my master’s degree. I want to send a big thank you to Communities In Schools because it truly is affecting students in the most positive way. Communities In Schools is making a change not only in younger students, but now college students as well.

But David Smalls, the new state director of Communities In Schools of South Carolina, has deep roots in both education and the Palmetto state. He was born and raised in South Carolina, and his parents were long-time educators. His father is a retired principal, and his mother taught second grade for 30 years. Pairing these ties alongside his exemplary leadership skills makes it easier to see how Smalls fits in the role of championing education initiatives for the students of South Carolina.

“David brings an incredible wealth of experience to the position,” said Jane Riley-Gambrell, executive director, Communities In Schools of the Charleston Area. “He will make wonderful connections for the organization and will help us grow and expand the successful service model of Communities In Schools within South Carolina. “

Since September of last year, Smalls has been working full throttle on getting the re-launched state office functioning at full capacity. When asked how he spends his days, he replied either in meetings or planning meetings. Communities In Schools has had a presence in South Carolina for more than 25 years. Currently there are seven affiliates serving approximately 19,610 students in 52 schools around the state. Having worked years in the business of helping people in South Carolina communities, Smalls is well aware of the challenges the state faces.

“We need to get good jobs here,” said Smalls, who has a bachelor of science in marketing from the University of South Carolina. “In order to get good jobs here, we need companies to come to our region. Getting companies here means we need to have an educated workforce. And having an educated workforce starts with getting our students to graduate.”

“There’s a lot of attention in the state around lowering the dropout rate,” said Smalls. “One entity can’t do it alone. But the Communities In Schools model – building relationships, forming partnerships – is proven to work. By bringing people together, we can make it happen.”

To date Smalls has focused on building the state office board of directors, and hopes to have it at its full complement within the next six months. He is also helping to support the accreditation of South Carolina affiliates who have yet to go through the process. Smalls has big goals for the state office.

Said Smalls, “Ultimately, I want Communities In Schools to be recognized as the leader in dropout prevention in South Carolina.”

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools President Dan Cardinali, who writes regularly for The Huffington Post. In today’s post, Cardinali advocates for school re-design that leaves room for flexibility. Creating a good ‘fit’ for all students is what’s needed to

School redesign is a hot topic in education circles, and it’s easy to see why. In so many ways, the basic underpinnings of our schools haven’t changed radically since the Industrial Revolution. Yes, we’ve introduced new technologies, curricula and so forth, but the underlying assumptions and delivery mechanisms are firmly rooted in the past.

Instead of tinkering with improved features here and there — teacher development, class size, additional learning time and so forth — proponents of school redesign believe that it’s time to go back to the drawing board, starting with a blank sheet of paper to create a school system designed specifically for the needs and realities of the 21st Century.

In late March, the Carnegie Corporation released a report entitled “Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success.” It’s a gamechanging piece of work that carefully lays out the need for comprehensive redesign, along with 10 “design principles” that reformers must keep in mind if they hope to affect a fundamental change in educational outcomes.

Carnegie’s design principles are essential, but they’re also flexible, recognizing the leadership capacity of superintendents and teachers across this country who are working double time to drive better academic outcomes for their students. Too often, those local leaders find themselves frustrated by structures and assumptions that simply don’t reflect the world we live in today. If we are to realize the full potential of school redesign, it’s important that we create a good “fit” for all our students — especially those who were left out of the current design iteration.

I’m thinking specifically here of students from one-parent (or no-parent) households. Our current school system was designed for an Ozzie and Harriet world where two parents share responsibility for ensuring their children’s academic success. Given the basic design assumptions, it’s no surprise that children from such households perform better on numerous education metrics, including GPA, standardized tests and college attendance.

The challenge, however, is that real life no longer hews to the script for the 27 percent of U.S. schoolchildren who come from a single-parent home. Though Harriet may try mightily to provide on her own, she is too often thwarted by a system that still assumes she has backup. For families that are poor, this design flaw negatively effects student performance. A new report from Child Trends explains it like this:

From a resource perspective, parents provide their children valuable social and financial capital, and these types of resources tend to be more limited in families with one parent and even more so in families with no parents. … [S]ingle mothers are often less able to provide emotional support and monitor their children effectively if they are overburdened by financial and emotional strains or are less able to balance work and family responsibilities successfully.

At Communities In Schools (CIS), we see this problem every single day, but we also see the amazing things that can happen when communities are catalyzed to act as extended families for children in need. Last year, CIS partnered with more than 300,000 parents or guardians, connecting them with over 15,000 community organizations to support them and their children. Boys and Girls Clubs, The Y, local churches, synagogues and mosques, Rotary Clubs and Junior League all function like a powerful extended family, offering physical and emotional supports that enable children and their caregivers to succeed.

And now, what we’ve seen to be true in our own experience is backed up by international data. One of the most intriguing findings in the Child Trends report is that the two-parent advantage we see in the U.S. does not always hold true in other contexts.

When researchers looked at education outcomes such as reading literacy, grade repetition and school enrollment around the world, they discovered many instances in which children from single-parent households performed just as well as their peers with two parents at home. Again and again, this apparent anomaly was observed in developing countries, where extended families and/or religious institutions play a far greater role than they do in the industrialized world.

What does this mean for school redesign efforts? If single-parent households are a permanent feature of the U.S. landscape, then any new-and-improved school design must find ways to welcome and integrate caring adults and the communities to which they belong into the lives of students and families.

Follow Dan Cardinali on Twitter:

@DanCardinali

Site coordinator Amy Revis and the college pennants she uses for motivation at Spindale Elementary School. Photo courtesy of CIS of Rutherford County

As a reporter, Amy Revis asked a lot of questions. She pressed and probed others so she could write interesting and accurate articles. But when she transitioned to a career in education – first becoming a substitute teacher, then a tutor and finally a site coordinator for Communities In Schools of Rutherford County, N.C., Revis became the person who provided answers.

“When you are telling people’s stories you wonder how you can improve a situation,” said Revis, who has a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “As a journalist, you can’t compromise the story you are working on. But when you come out of that world, it is rewarding to get involved and to be able to help.”

At Spindale Elementary School, where Revis has been the part-time site coordinator since 2009, the work seems full-time as she takes on the responsibility of case managing 40 of the school’s nearly 400 students. When she first arrived at Spindale, she was immediately given a chance to provide the answer to a very real and growing concern: How can students be supported so they are not worried about where their next meal will come from?

As in many communities across the country, the economy of Rutherford, a once-thriving area thanks to its textile mills, has been hit hard. Many families have been deeply affected by the job losses and even those who may not have needed help before, need it now. The Communities In Schools local affiliate saw a way to help students and the community, and the food backpack program was launched.

At Spindale, 85 percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-lunch, a number that has increased from 60 percent only 10 years ago. And while Revis notes many at-risk students receive breakfast and lunch in school, it is the weekend that becomes problematic. Revis had no previous experience organizing such a program, but says she did a quick Google search and got all the information she needed. She rallied volunteers, speaking to church and business groups, and got permissions slips, the backpacks and the food to launch the program at Spindale. Every Friday afternoon, 95 students in need receive a backpack with enough food to provide them with meals for the weekend.

Site coordinator Amy Revis reading to students at Spindale Elementary School. Photo courtesy of CIS of Rutherford County

Today, Communities In Schools of Rutherford County serves close to 750 students through the food backpack program at all 13 of the school sites. The food and volunteers all come from the community – a local food bank, churches, individuals, business, industry and civic clubs. Spindale also has a clothes closet that was created originally to handle emergencies. Revis has helped expand the service with the help of volunteers and donations, so that now it is available to help with basic needs including shoes, coats and toiletries.

“We want to do whatever we can to assure that children come to school on Monday ready to learn,” said Revis, who is also the part-time manager of the mentoring program for the 13 elementary and middle schools in Rutherford County. “If kids can’t concentrate because their clothes are too small or they’re hungry, we can provide for them and make them more comfortable. I remember one little girl being so grateful just to get lotion, something that can be taken for granted. We feel good about being able to support the students.”

Today’s blog post is by Communities In Schools President Dan Cardinali, who writes regularly for The Huffington Post. In his latest post, which originally ran on March 27, Cardinali writes about demonstrations of bravery, decency and inspiration shown by youth every day in schools across America. The newly announced Peace First Prize will acknowledge and honor the young people who are leading social change and making a positive difference in the world. Let us know what you think.

In a Florida high school auditorium not too long ago, a shy, awkward freshman approached a group of older students to ask for directions. With her strong Haitian accent and unstylish clothes, the new girl was easy prey for the sophomores, who slipped instantly into a kind of group hunting mode. They taunted and teased and tore at the girl with insults that only grew louder as the humiliation etched into her face.

But one sophomore laughed a little less loudly as the new girl slunk away, isolated and alone. Nephtalie had made the trip from Haiti to Florida when she was much younger. She’d had time to soften her accent and learn the latest styles, time to make friends and fit in.

In other words, Nephtalie had had time to become cool, but she realized in the auditorium that day that she couldn’t be cold. The pain in the new girl’s eyes ignited something unfamiliar inside her — a spark of empathy that she couldn’t ignore. She sought out the new girl to apologize, and then she went back to her own friends to confront them about what they had done.

A moment of violence followed by a small act of kindness and then a real act of courage? Not the ending we’ve come to expect from a story of high school bullying.

But the story doesn’t actually end there, because Nephtalie’s newfound sense of empathy still wasn’t satisfied. Realizing that there wasn’t just one “new girl” in the school, Nephtalie recruited her friends to start a club that would seek out all foreign students to help them fit in and learn their way around. The “mean girls” are now an unofficial welcoming committee, and they’re finding their new role immensely satisfying. “It brings joy to my friends and I as we help our fellow peers despite their accent and the clothes they wear,” Nephtalie explains.

It’s an extraordinary story, isn’t it? How often do you hear of teenagers with the courage to resist peer pressure, do the right thing and create a little bit of peace in their world?

There’s no doubt that Nephtalie is a brave, decent and inspiring girl, but I’m not so sure that those are extraordinary traits in our young people. In fact, I operate under just the opposite thesis: Bravery, decency and inspiration manifest themselves every day in every school across America, but those stories all too often are overlooked simply because they do not fit into the dominant cultural narrative that casts young people as perpetrators of violence.

In other words, it’s not extraordinary when our students seek to create peace in their schools and communities — it’s only extraordinary when we hear about it.

I know that I would never have heard Nephtalie’s story, except that I happen to serve on the board of a wonderful nonprofit that is deeply committed to bringing such stories to light. Peace First has spent more than 20 years fine-tuning a curriculum that teaches “the essential social and emotional skills of empathy, personal awareness, relationship building and promoting inclusion” to students from Pre-K through eighth grade.

Now, under the able leadership of co-founder Eric D. Dawson, Peace First is expanding upon its school-by-school “retail approach” by introducing an ambitious new effort to discover, celebrate and empower young people who are already out there doing transformative work.

Several months ago, Eric shared the stage with Chelsea Clinton to announce the Peace First Prize, a two-year, $50,000 fellowship conceived as a kind of Nobel Peace Prize for young people aged eight to 22. Winners will be chosen based on three key criteria: compassion, courage and the ability to engage others in creating positive change. Five fellowships will be announced in September, and the cash awards plus high-level mentoring are sure to make a lasting difference in the peacemaking efforts of each winner.

In a way, however, the real power of the Prize goes far beyond the individual winners. By creating a premier showcase for those who have “confronted injustice, crossed lines of difference, and had the courage and compassion to create lasting change,” Peace First is seeking to inspire young people everywhere by shifting the narrative from violence to peace. Here’s how Eric described it to me:

“The need for peacemaking today is more critical than ever before. We are bombarded with negative stories about young people in the media, when in reality, the norm is that young people are leading social change. Making a positive difference. Standing up for justice. Those are the stories Peace First wants to tell…

“We have to give young people alternatives in their lives. We need to give them hope and a vision to aspire to. And we have to celebrate their accomplishments. That’s what the Peace First Prize will do.”

Hope. Vision. Celebration. It’s rare that we talk about young people in such terms — and rarer still that our young people hear those words applied to their generation.

The Peace First Prize offers a chance to change our vocabulary and our perceptions. Every time we tell another story of courage, conviction and compassion, we help to shift the narrative in a more positive direction. We show kids like Nephtalie that they’re not alone, that they’re making a difference, and that we believe in them.

Thank you for reading Nephtalie’s story, but please don’t stop there. Find the young peacemakers in your own community, and share their stories by April 12.

Peace is alive and well in our schools. It’s our job to search it out, recognize it, and build on it.

Follow Dan Cardinali on Twitter:

@DanCardinali

Gathering around the family ping pong table to make a difference. Photo by Sandy Barry-Loken

Periodically, Beyond the Classroom shares blog posts from affiliates, mentors, partners, and education and nonprofit leaders. Today’s post was originally published on Communities In Schools of Kalamazoo’s blog. Sandy Barry-Loken, director of Greater Kalamazoo’s Girls on the Run, shared her family’s tradition of putting their money where their hearts are. 

It’s December 26^th and Nana has gathered her six grandchildren around the ping pong table.  Ages 13, 11, 10, 9, 6, and 6, every kid gathers round and anticipation fills the air.  These kids know they are not about to play a single game of ping pong – they are about to help change the world.

Their Nana, Marilyn Loken, was taught early on by her father, a medical doctor, and her mother who assisted him, that giving back and serving others is not only necessary, but a responsibility.  This is a value that she is committed to passing on to her grandchildren.

Starting eight years ago, Loken had an idea to involve her grandchildren in her annual year-end giving.  So, every year, after the gifts are open and dinner has been served, another tradition ensues at the Loken household. These kids help give Nana and Poppa’s money away to causes they believe in – and this year, they believed in Communities In Schools of Kalamazoo.

This is how it works. The kids gather and Nana rounds the table giving the four older kids $100 in play money in a variety of bills – twenties, tens, and fives. The two six-year olds each are given a total of $50. Then, Nana asks the all-important question, “What organizations do you want to help this year?” Suddenly, a kid-friendly brainstorming session begins.

Hands go up in the air. The youngest ones bounce in their places. With grandparents and parents who volunteer and include a nurse, a police officer and the director of non-profit organization, the six Loken kids have no trouble making a list of causes they want to get behind. While the kids call out organizations and explain why they want to help them, Nana writes down their suggestions on small slips of paper and begins to spread them around the table. This is fun, but every grandkid knows the best part is yet to come. They know it won’t be long before they get to walk around the perimeter of the table and place their dollar bills on the causes that mean the most to them. They can place all of their money on one, or spread it out amongst several.

It’s no surprise that the furry friends of the world have benefited greatly through the years – these are kids, after all.  Not only have Paws With a Cause, and Loken’s son’s  K-9 unit made the list, but Heifer International has been a favorite as well.  The little ones scurry around the edge and think of the milk that will serve a village when they give $10 to help buy a goat or a sheep for a community.

As the kids are getting older, they are paying attention to stories they hear about—the many people who do not have a roof over their head, or enough food for their table. So this year, organizations like Mecosta County Habitat for Humanity, where Marilyn Loken is a member of their board of directors, also benefited.

There was one other organization this year that tugged on the heart strings of all of the kids – Communities In Schools. Nicholas, 13, the oldest of the kids, made the nomination. He remembered his mom coming home from work one day and telling the story of two brothers at an elementary school who were sharing a single coat through the winter – until a CIS site coordinator learned of the need and presented each with his own. The Lokens had also heard about the students -who cannot wait for Friday.  While the Loken kids know that for them, Friday means a break from the busy school week, they were moved to learn there are other students in Kalamazoo Public Schools who anxiously await  Friday because that is when their CIS site coordinator presents them with a Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes backpack full of food to get them through their weekend.  It was sad for them to learn that kids in their communities don’t get enough to eat. But they now realize, thanks to Communities In Schools, more kids are getting the help they need when school is not in session to provide them with their basic meals.

And so, when Nana’s $500 was carefully distributed around the room among five different organizations, Communities In Schools was the recipient of $140 of these dollars, and the Loken grandkids knew they were making the world a better place.  And Nana knew, so was she.

Make a gift to Communities In Schools in honor of a loved one who taught you how to make the world a better place.