At this moment, we are sitting on a resource so powerful, it has the capacity to save the world, if we would only choose to use it. What is this hidden resource? It is, simply, the best of who we are.

Since 1988, Bread for the Journey volunteers have called forth the best of who they are by donating their time to improve the community in which they live. Collectively, our twenty chapters in twenty cities throughout the United States have micro-granted over three million dollars to help creative people launch projects that make their local communities more vital, healthy, and just. Over half of the grants Bread for the Journey chapters have ever made have seeded projects that improve the wellbeing of children and youth. Today we highlight three Denver, Colorado projects that focus on the education of our children and youth – creating conditions for them to bring forth the best of who they are.

Educational Reform Energizes and Empowers Communities

Linda Campbell’s calling is helping others to find their own voice––and then supporting their efforts to turn their voices, hopes and dreams into action. She believes that when learning engages both hearts and minds, students are able to reach their full potential. As Denver Bread for the Journey chapter leader since 2000, Campbell has been funding educational efforts in her community that reflect this vision. She explains, “My hope is that by offering one little positive experience (thru art, music, schools, community building), Bread for the Journey will help grantees learn how to have more of those experiences in their lives.”

Bread for the Journey has made numerous strategic micro-grants for educational reform projects during the last 8 years that have liberated creative and social capital throughout the Denver area. The following three stories are examples of how one woman’s message of “You have the power to do important work in the world,” has helped inspire individuals and communities to do just that.

Project VOYCE trains students to be agents of change

Brian Barhaugh has been empowering youth through real-work experiences for many years. He believes that too often, students’ valuable ideas and insights are left out of school improvement discussions. This can compromise community trust, as well as students’ attendance, participation and achievement.

In August 2006 Brian co-founded the non-profit organization Project VOYCE (Voices of Youth Changing Education) following the abrupt closure of Manual High School in Denver. Part of a national movement to increase student input in education, Project VOYCE has worked with and trained 36 youth from more than 15 different schools to become skilled action researchers, change agents, and organizers of community partnerships.

Bread for the Journey of Denver met with the young people involved in Project VOYCE and was very impressed. Lee — one of the participants — explained, “When the voices of students are routinely unsolicited or ignored amid reform planning and implementation, the directions assumed by teachers and administrators can be misguided, particularly when their efforts directly clash with the students’ own concerns.” Project VOYCE bridges this gap.

The Denver chapter provided a grant of $1500 for stipends to pay Project VOYCE youth for their work gathering and analyzing data, then helping educate adults about how to incorporate their ideas into reform efforts. The grant is already making an impact. In partnership with Henry Middle School and the Institute for Educational Equity, the youth of Project VOYCE conducted focus groups with more than 25 middle-schoolers and worked to determine why 42% of students are on the honor roll and 37% are failing with two or more D's or F's, during the Fall of 2006. In the coming months, Project VOYCE will be working with teachers, administration and students at Henry to implement tools for increased engagement that will affect 880 Henry students and 55 teachers.

Project VOYCE participants say that as a result of participation, they have developed academic and interpersonal skills that have improved their experience and performance at school, home, and with legislators in Washington D.C.

Assistant Coach, Inc. teaches life skills through basketball

Tyrone Buckmon and Chuck Sproling grew up in northeast Denver. Unlike most of their friends in Manual High School, they were fortunate to be able to finish high school, go on to college and pursue professional careers. They credit this good fortune to the positive adult role models in their lives, including their parents, community leaders and coaches. Now in their 30s, these former high school basketball superstars are doing the same for others. They teamed up with social worker Michelle Chaloupka to found Assistant Coach Inc., a program that helps kids of all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds in Denver’s suburbs learn life skills through basketball training.

Founded on a new science of sports-based youth development, this research-backed program presents a cutting edge curriculum designed to utilize the many positive learning and character-building opportunities available to youth through sports, with a focus on the values of teamwork, respect, responsibility, fair play, and perseverance.

When Manual High School was closed due to low test scores, Buckmon and Sproling sought to expand their project into this struggling neighborhood. Bread for the Journey made this expansion possible with a $900 grant to create a brochure and to sponsor three young people into the program.

The school reopened in August 2007, borrowing from practices of successful charter schools in an attempt to improve. Thanks to creative, dedicated school leadership and community activists including Buckmon and Sproling, in the past year reading and writing scores among ninth-graders at Manual High School have doubled.

North High School leaves a green legacy

Over the years, Denver’s North High School has had only a small number of students meeting grade-level expectations, many students dropping out before graduating, and few who have gone on to college. A recent community-wide effort dedicated significant resources toward transforming the school’s image and achievement levels.

With a new principal and a new vision, North High was renamed the North High School Institute for World Learning. Its new principal Joann Trujillo-Hays (who is no longer with the school) explained, “This title came from the thought that we need to prepare students to be citizens of the world. They must have exposure to a sophisticated curriculum that causes them to think critically and problem solve as our future leaders.” With a new global identity and a commitment to cultivating students equipped to compete in the global workplace, the school decided to do its part in addressing our global climate crisis.

Through a service-learning program, Jennifer Draper, the school’s public relations liaison, worked with students to design the Green Legacy tree-planting project. Thanks to Jennifer’s efforts, most of the supplies were either donated or given at a reduced cost. Bread for the Journey of Denver granted $800 to cover the final costs and a sign identifying the new “forest” as the Tree Nursery Service Learning Project. As the school campus became more beautiful and more green––literally and politically––students and the surrounding community began to see the young people involved as empowered and valuable members of their community.

Draper reports that one student, for example, subsequently applied and was accepted to a leadership summer camp with a local Rotary Club chapter. There she was further recognized with an invitation to start a community service-focused Interact Club. This same student also helped organize a bingo night at the downtown Ronald McDonald House. In effect, through the process of giving service to her school and her community, a troubled teen has begun to experience a new sense of possibility for her life.

Bread for the Journey: bringing forth what is most alive in communities

Bread for the Journey has helped leaders working with children throughout the Denver area get re-energized and re-motivated. By giving grantees permission to bring their full selves, voices and passions with them into their programs and to each student they work with, our micro-grants have helped inspire every person these leaders have touched. Given to the right person at the right time, Bread for the Journey’s small seed grants take root in the fertile soil of vision and passion. As a result, Linda Campbell and the Denver chapter have helped teachers and school systems support students in realizing their potential as they discover their passion for learning.

Warmly,

Wayne Muller
Founder

Click here to read the previous INSPIRATIONS.