Tag Archive: leadership


Meet Our Leadership: Sara Massey

Filed Under: Meet Our Leadership by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
February 14, 2013

Today’s “Meet Our Leadership” profile is of Communities In Schools of Greater New Orleans President Sara Massey. Since moving to New Orleans shortly after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Massey has become passionate about making sure every student in the area is properly equipped with school supplies. This blog post was previously featured on Living Lutheran.

Responding to a call

Communities In Schools of Greater New Orleans Executive Director Sara Massey. Photo courtesy Living Lutheran.

Lifelong ELCA member Sara Massey knows first-hand the power the ELCA Youth Gathering has to change lives in unexpected ways.

By 2006, she and her husband, Andy, had built a comfortable life for their family, so when Andy was offered a job in the athletic department at Tulane University in New Orleans just months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, Sara wasn’t eager to make the move.

Sara had stayed in Boone while Andy made the trip to New Orleans for the interview. He happened to be interviewing while their daughter, Meredith, was at the 2006 ELCA Youth Gathering in San Antonio — the theme of which was “Cruzando” or “crossing over” in Spanish.

“I didn’t want to be gone when Meredith returned from what would be an emotional high,” Sara says. “When she got back, she immediately wanted to know where Dad was.”

Sara put her on the phone with Andy, and he explained that the he might be taking a job in New Orleans. “When she hung up, she said ‘Well, Mom, I just got back from Cruzando which is Spanish for crossing over. They told us as teenagers we are preparing to cross over into a [new] area of our lives. We need to ‘cross over’ with confidence, knowing we have God’s grace and God’s blessing. I guess this is my Cruzando.’”

Sara still gets emotional when she remembers her daughter’s reaction. “Here we are getting ready to pick her up from her perfect little world to move her to the worst natural disaster in the history of this country,” Sara says. “That’s when I knew we were basically responding to a call.”

New Orleans

Six years and two Gatherings later, the family is still in New Orleans. Now Sara works for Communities In Schools of Greater New Orleans, an organization dedicated to helping kids stay in school and achieve in life.

When the 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering was held in New Orleans — and each of the 35,000 young people in attendance dedicated an entire day of their visit to service projects — Sara jumped at the opportunity to meet with organizers.

“I was one of the early people they talked to,” says Sara. “They said, ‘Sara, what can we do to help your organization?’”

She pitched a project to collect school supplies for kids in New Orleans. At the 2006 San Antonio Gathering, congregations had been encouraged to bring school supplies with them. This, though, would be different. Sara remembers the meeting well.

“We were sitting in the conference room, and Peggy [Hahn, one of the organizers of the Gathering] said, “We’re going to ship you enough school supplies so that you can give kits to every kid in kindergarten through third grade.” Sara was flabbergasted.

“That’s 13,550 school kids,” she replied to Peggy.

“Yeah,” Peggy said.

Feeling the impact

The school supply kits met an urgent need in the community, and the project was so successful, that it was repeated at the 2012 Gathering.

This time Sara oversaw the assembly of 15,000 kits for grades four and five in both Orleans and Jefferson parishes. They also received healthy snack kits provided and packed by ELCA youth and helped hand out books as part of the Gathering’s initiative to collect and distribute 1 million books to New Orleans schoolchildren.

And even though the 2012 Gathering has come and gone, Sara is still seeing the impact. The Gathering donated all of the items they had purchased for the Practice Peacemaking area of the Gathering — the part of the event housed in the convention center where kids could learn about social issues or just hang out and play games — to Communities In Schools. The donation included everything from futons, basketball hoops and artwork to school supplies, paper and even eight wheelchairs.

Sara has put together a program that is distributing these supplies to local teachers and classrooms. And she is beginning to get feedback on how the donations are impacting people’s lives.

“I received envelopes from two schools that contained the sweetest little letters from fourth-graders,” says Sara.

“In several of the letters,” she says, “the kids said my mom couldn’t buy me pencils, and now I have a pencil.” Other letters mentioned never having had color pencils before receiving their school supply kits. Another ended with the words, “I love you.”

Overall, Sara says that the ELCA Youth Gatherings play a role in people’s lives that really can’t be measured. “The impact that it has on these young people, and the communities where it goes is priceless,” Sara says. “Isn’t that what we as a church should be about?”

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Navigating the Path to Graduation, Together

Filed Under: Affiliates by Briana Kerensky — 1 Comment
January 3, 2013

Senior Maddie Humphreys, left, helps freshman Sarah Perry with her biology homework during a peer mentoring session at Sehome High School. Photo courtesy Phillip A. Dwyer/The Bellingham Herald.

The beginning of January is always a time of self-reflection. We look back at the past year to evaluate what we accomplished (or maybe didn’t accomplish) and create resolutions for the new year. We promise ourselves we will exercise more, read more books, and spend less time in front of televisions and computers. We pledge that we will do more to make our lives better and more fulfilling. And what’s more fulfilling than helping others achieve?

While January is a month to make personal resolutions, it’s also National Mentoring Month. It’s when we thank the people who inspire us and give us the strength to reach our goals, and take the time to consider how we can be positive role models for others.

At Communities In Schools of Whatcom County, Wash., students are dedicated to being mentors throughout the school year. For the past three years, seniors at Sehome High School have been paired with incoming freshmen to help them with homework, projects and navigating the path to graduation. This year, 71 seniors are acting as mentors.

“Our peer mentoring has an academic focus,” said Communities In Schools of Whatcom County Executive Director Dennis D’Amelio. “But beyond that, mentors get to sit down with their mentees and talk about everything important to kids that they might not want to talk about with an adult.”

All mentors participating in the program are interviewed and thoroughly trained before being paired with their mentees. They’re taught how to help freshmen with their homework, how to ask important questions and what to do if they feel like their mentee needs more support than they can provide. Student academic progress is tracked and Communities In Schools staff and school counselors know if anyone needs additional resources. Student safety, both mentor and mentee, is also very important.

“We train our mentors to be aware of potential issues and if they see something to ask for help,” D’Amelio said.  “If a mentee mentions potential abuse or neglect, the mentor informs Communities In Schools staff and they bring in school counselors.”

Sehome High School’s mentoring program doesn’t just help freshmen – the seniors acting as mentors benefit as well. In Washington, serving the community is a requirement for graduation. Acting as a mentor qualifies, and helps students get a step closer to receiving a diploma. But many of the students who participate are there for more than the credit – they’re there for the experience of being a positive role model and helping others.

“Kids can give back,” D’Amelio said. “We have dynamic student leaders.”

Learn more about Communities In Schools of Whatcom County’s peer mentoring program in this great feature by The Bellingham Herald.

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Site Coordinator Snapshot: Building Tomorrow’s Leaders

Filed Under: Site Coordinator Snapshots, Site Coordinators by Erica Rafferty — Leave a comment
December 18, 2012
Connie Brown headshot

Turner County Connection-Communities In Schools of Turner County Site Coordinator Connie Brown.

Being a Communities In Schools site coordinator doesn’t just mean providing students with the support they need to graduate from high school; it also means preparing students for what comes next, whether that’s pursuing a post-secondary education or a career.

In Ashburn, Ga. – a small, rural community – Turner County Connection-Communities In Schools of Turner County Site Coordinator Connie Brown is providing the students she serves with as many opportunities as possible to prepare for life after graduation.

“It’s a collaboration. All of us – the chamber of commerce, local colleges – work together to make sure everything that’s done through Communities In Schools is really a group effort,” said Brown.

Brown said there aren’t many post-secondary prospects within the community, so she works with local organizations and corporations to help her students explore what’s possible, whether or not they decide to stay in Turner County.

For Brown, that means if she has a student who is interested in becoming a probation officer, she knows she simply can call the probation office and ask someone there to take the student on a tour and sit down and discuss the profession.

In addition to increasing students’ opportunities, she’s also growing their skills. Since she became a site coordinator last year, Brown has managed Communities In Schools’ student-run leadership program at Turner County High School, bringing together a group of 24 ninth through twelfth grade students to shape the high school experiences for each year’s incoming freshmen.

Students doing the "human knot."

Students learning teamwork and collaboration by creating a "human knot."

The year-long program starts with orientation. Leadership program members develop talking points, give the incoming freshman class a tour, and facilitate activities to help get them comfortable with their new school and classmates. Their next major project is teaching a life-skill lesson to ninth grade students during English class over a period of nine weeks. Program members are trained during the summer on best practices for teaching lessons and controlling classroom behavior. Throughout the rest of the year, they mentor freshmen and participate in community service projects.

One of the upperclassmen in Brown’s leadership program struggled with anger management issues. With Brown’s assistance, the student gradually learned coping mechanisms, such as journaling, to help him keep his cool. This turnaround became even more evident when he spoke to ninth grade students during the leadership program.

“We went into our first English class, and one of the ninth grade students asked for advice from an upperclassman, and he said, ‘What you do in your ninth grade year affects your entire school year. The reputation you get now, you are going to keep it. Even though you may change, it will be hard for people to see the change,’” said Brown.

Through this leadership opportunity, the students begin to see themselves as role models and witness how they can positively impact their community. They have created a thorough interview process for the leadership program to ensure that prospective participants will be fully engaged.

Ultimately, it’s Brown’s encouragement and constant support of her students that has permeated the group and given her students the confidence to believe in themselves and each other.

“It’s been an honor for me to work with them and see them take such ownership – they are very protective of this team, and they really push involvement and encouragement,” said Brown.

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Meet Our Leadership: Shelley Henderson

Filed Under: Meet Our Leadership by Briana Kerensky — Leave a comment
December 11, 2012

Shelley Henderson“I feel like everything I’ve done has led me to Communities In Schools,” said Shelley Henderson, state director of Communities In Schools of Nebraska and interim executive director of Communities In Schools of Omaha.

Born and raised in Omaha, Henderson had a childhood very similar to the kind that Communities In Schools students across the country experience every day. Her mother, who was a teenager when she had Henderson, struggled with poverty and mental illness.

“Her ability to engage with schools and advocate for what I needed…she couldn’t do it,” Henderson said. “I grew up in the midst of gang culture and food pantries, but I loved school. It was well lit. I was guaranteed light and water, and I could eat there. I could read there. And I figured out that opening a book could transport me to anywhere in the universe. I knew that school had to be a priority for me, and that it was going to allow me to turn my situation around.”

Upon graduating from high school, Henderson knew she wanted to help young people struggling to overcome the same barriers to success she once faced. After college, she became a teacher in the Omaha public school system, and worked hard to provide her students with both a quality education and the resources they and their families needed to survive. But doing both was exhausting, and after seven years she felt burned out.

Henderson felt torn between teaching children and supporting them, and so took a job with the University of Nebraska in Omaha as a P-16 coordinator. P-16 is a comprehensive system dedicated to linking all levels of education, from preschool to post-secondary. As a coordinator, Henderson helped the local school district and the University of Nebraska align their curricula, so that students graduating high school had a smooth academic transition into college. She also organized campus tours for students, so they could get a glimpse of post-secondary education and begin to imagine themselves with a college degree.

Henderson found the work fulfilling, but knew that she could still do more to help students succeed. It was 2008, and the youth in north Omaha were truly struggling. There were robberies and drive-by shootings, teen pregnancies and academic failures. And the community had had enough. They banded together to look for solutions when Henderson stumbled upon the Communities In Schools website. She quickly learned more about the organization, and felt it made the most sense to bring the organization’s passion for building a community of support around students to the youth of north Omaha. With the support of the Communities In Schools national office and her community, Henderson was able to build the Nebraska state office. They began serving students during the 2010-2011 school year, with Henderson at the helm as state director.

“With Communities In Schools I’ve been given license to consider ‘whatever it takes’ to usher resources into schools. It’s been the one opportunity in my professional career where I’ve been allowed to dedicate 100 percent to figuring out what it’s going to take to get kids and families to the next level. It’s been liberating.”

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Meet Our Leadership: Jeff Brown

Filed Under: Meet Our Leadership by Tracey Savell Reavis — Leave a comment
October 18, 2012
Jeff Brown

Communities In Schools of Michigan State Director Jeff Brown

The job of reviving a nonprofit might seem daunting for most, but not for Jeff Brown. When he was hired this past May as the new state director for Communities In Schools of Michigan, he accepted the challenge faced with no staff or physical office, not to mention not even a pad or pencil. But what Brown did have was close to 40 years of experience as an entrepreneur, leading nonprofits and for-profits in the business, education, and health and wellness fields. And, he had a passion for work that makes an impact.

“The opportunity is aligned with who I am as a person,” said Brown. “I’ve had a lifelong commitment to education and I’m a strong advocate for empowering students at all levels. I looked at this as an incredible opportunity to do something significant.”

Brown also has deep roots in Michigan education and poverty-reduction programs, having worked as an executive director of the Kalamazoo County Poverty Reduction Initiative (PRI) for four and-a-half years, and having been a member of a local school board for more than 12 years. While at PRI he was able to help replicate that model in numerous counties across Michigan.

“Jeff brings a broad range of experience and a commitment that would be hard to surpass. He is intelligent and focused on one thing—how do we help our kids,” said David Hecker, chair of the board of directors of Communities In Schools of Michigan. “With Jeff building a state organization, we will be able to provide assistance to existing Communities In Schools local affiliates and expand programming to meet the needs of all of our students.”

A previous Michigan state office had been up and running since 1997. After being hit hard by budget cuts, the then-existing board of directors, after months of deliberating, concluded that the office had to close in 2009. But realizing leadership was needed to support the six local Communities In Schools affiliates and their 139 school sites prompted the search for a new state director and plans to reopen the office.

The ramp-up for the new state office follows an existing plan established by Communities In Schools. Priorities include drafting policies, appointing members to the board of directors, building relationships with local affiliates to provide the support they need and building statewide partnerships that will ultimately bring the resources most needed to at-risk students.

Nearly six months into the process, Brown’s vision and goals for the state office are on track. He has brought on four new board members to bring the total to 12. He’s set his sights on what technical support needs to be provided to the local affiliates to help them with accreditation. And, he’s placed a high priority on making sure the Communities In Schools brand is widely known throughout the state.

“This organization has two great components to help people understand our work,” said Brown. “A data-driven, valid model that has been measured and has credibility. And we are able to tell very powerful personal stories about the way our work has changed students’ lives. We have the best of both worlds. And I’m excited to take our model and build from there.”

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