Stone Soup Leadership Institute

Category: SL.11-12.1.c (Speaking and Listening | Comprehension and Collaboration)

Teaching Jazz, Creating Community

Wynton Marsalis is best known as an award-winning jazz musician. But for students in the thousands of schools he’s visited, he’s a role model telling them to “take your freedom and put it into the service of somebody else’s.” Young people like Roberto Perez in Washington D.C. have learned from Wynton how jazz can be a metaphor for creating democracy. “What a kid learns from jazz is how to express his individuality without stepping on somebody else’s,” says Wynton. ·”Being a good neighbor, that’s what jazz is all about.”

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Focus: HOPE

EDS Chairman Les Alberthal came from a small town in Texas where everyone knows everyone else, and helping your neighbor is “as natural as pulling on your cowboy boots.” He encourages his 95,000 employees to live out his philosophy that healthy communities and healthy business go hand in hand. This is the story of how one EDS executive, Hulas King made a big difference in the lives of young people at Focus: HOPE in Detroit where a state-of-the-art technology center trains high school students to become manufacturing engineers and machinists. “Since the center’s founding in 1981, more than 5,000 young people have moved out of poverty and forward in their lives,” says Hulas. “For kids once on welfare and walking the streets, that’s an incredible future.” For Maia Cherry, one of the students mentored by Hulas, the personal attention and encouragement she received were as valuable as the technical training. “There are so many smart young people, and they don’t even know their potential,” says Maia. ‘1want them to know, if you have the desire, you can do it!”

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Fulfilling Martin’s Dream

When Frank Carr heard Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, it was a turning point in his life. Returning to Chicago, he challenged his business colleagues to join him in opening doors of opportunity to “all God’s children” so they could succeed in the. corporate world. His vision led to the national organization, INROADS which provides mentors and internships for over 6,000 young people like Juan, a young Mexican immigrant who was given a chance to succeed. Now a manager at Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Juan says” There is so much talent in our youth. We all need to take the time to harvest it and help them realize their dreams.”

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