Leadership staffers Wendell Ramsey and Chris Williams recently presented at the “High Schools That Work” conference in Nashville, TN (sponsored by the Southern Region Educational Board). They presented Leadership’s RISE (Reintegrating Students in Education) Program. Last week’s publication of “High Schools That Work” focused on the best practices in creating successful high schools; they included the RISE program in one of the published articles. The RISE Program is currently featured at the Taft Educational Campus in the Bronx.

At Leadership, we have a service initiative called Leadership Steps Up through which staff develop service projects for the local and global community. As we begin the new year and approached Dr. Martin Luther King’s Day of Service, we hoped to address, as Dr. King put so clearly, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question—What are you doing for others?” In response to Dr. King’s questions, we organized Step Up and Do Something, a Leadership Cabaret that showcased Leadership’s staff talents to raise money and awareness for today’s youth. We formed a collaboration with Do Something, a NYC-based organization that shares the same values, goals, and mission of empowering youth and building strong leaders by creating a culture of volunteerism and activism among young people who recognize the need to “do something”. Step Up and Do Something was a salute to the dedicated and brilliant individuals who constantly strive to make positive change in this world.

Step Up and Do Something was a success on many levels! All the donations from the event went directly to two of Do Something.org’s initiatives: their Teens for Jeans campaign that is centered around gently worn denim donations and supplies over 1,000 homeless shelters in the United States and Canada, and their Annual Boot Camp Series, which provides youth with courses in volunteer management, marketing, social media, and social change. The Leadership family of colleagues and friends successfully collected 48 pairs of jeans and raised $750, enough to send 9 students to Annual Do Something Boot Camp which will be hosted in NYC on June 9th, 2012.

It was a fantastic evening and so inspiring to be a part of such a great company of people. We were so proud to be members of this group who were boldly sharing their artistry with the community. It was a great occasion to be reminded of why our trainers are some of the best in this city! We wildly applaud the following stars who took the stage and shared their talents for a good cause: Tom Armstrong, Elizabeth Pupo-Walker, Lucille Rivin, Christopher Benjamin, Alexandra Warren, Allyson Lynch, Lumumba Seegars, Christina Neubrand, Jenny Greeman, Cornelius Bates, Mauel Rojas, Beata Terrasi, Funmilayo Chesney and Members of the Fusha Dance Company! It was so inspiring to celebrate the true artist in all of our trainers. Thank you all for Stepping Up and Doing Something! We hope to make this an annual event so if you missed it this year be sure you take the stage next year!

Congratulations to Leadership Trainer Chad Beckim! A review of “After.”, written by Chad, has been featured in the New York Times. Check out the article here:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/theater/reviews/in-after-by-chad-bekim-an-ex-con-returns-review.html?scp=3&sq=after%20they%20prison&st=cse

Shout out to our Leadership Program Manager of Bronx and Manhattan, Yindy Vatanavan, whose picture was featured in the article.

Back in action with Back-to-School Training! Have you explored your educational landscape? What do you think is the first step in creating a movement? Are you ready to lead, learn, and lead again? As always, we’re excited to kick off this new year and take this journey with you!

Check out this trailer for the MS 80 Drama Club and their performance of “Alice in Wonderland Jr.”!

A huge Congrats to Leadership Trainer Laban Reeves and his students at Jonathan Levin High School! On June 7, an awards ceremony was held in the library at Taft Educational Campus in the Bronx for the students that successfully completed the RISE (Re-Integrating Students through Education) Program. A total of 21 students were presented with the following awards: EXCEPTIONAL ATTENDANCE AWARD, EXTRAORDINARY ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, OUTSTANDING DETERMINATION AWARD, And POSITIVE OUTLOOK AWARD. Each award was given based on the recipient’s strongest leadership quality exhibited throughout the duration of the program. The keynote speaker for the afternoon was Two-Time Super bowl Champion and ex-New York Giants Running Back Lee Rouson. Mr. Rouson captivated the attention of all the students and parents in attendance as he encouraged the award recipients to have a sense of self-identity and to continue setting goals as they strive to achieve their dreams.

IS 52 HerStory’s young ladies at there closing performance. With Leadershipper Quincy Koffel at the helm, HerStory expanded to a high school site this year – Leadership BISCEP’s Felisa Rincon de Gautier Institute for Law and Public Policy.

Under the direction of Leadership Site Coordinator Mike Roche, PS/IS 155 in Brooklyn is finishing the year with a bang in its afterschool clubs. Here a few highlights:

Book Drive- The TLP clubs conducted a very successful Book Drive. Over two hundred books were collected from students, parents, teachers and administrators. The boxes used to collect books were overflowing. The Parent Association is going to sponsor the Book Sale with the proceeds to go to the American Red Cross to support the relief efforts in Japan.

Poetry Journal- The Journalism Club under the direction of Leadership Trainer Sarah Bendix has collected over two hundred poems from fellow students and has created a poetry journal for every class at the school.

School Newspaper- On Wednesday, June 22nd the End of the Year PS / IS 155 NewsFlash Newspaper created by the Journalism Club (Trainer Sarah Bendix) will be distributed to every student in the school. This is the third edition of NewsFlash being published this year. This is the first year that there has been a school Newspaper at the school!

Conflict Resolution– The Movie! – The Art/Conflict Resolution club with Trainer Jon Souza has made a Conflict Resolution movie which was viewed by everyone at the school. The club has been working on many important topics including: How to deal with Anger, Teamwork, “I” messages, Choices, Decisions and Consequences, Trust, and Active Listening.

Multi-Cultural Day– This Wednesday the 22nd were the Multi-Cultural Day Performances at the School. The Dance Club under the direction of Trainer Heather Freedman performed a wonderful Bollywood dance to celebrate. The Percussion club under direction Trainer David DiGiantomasso performed a number of drum routines for the Multi-Cultural day performance. The students were very inspired by the field trip they took to the Battle of the Drum Lines at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. They really enjoyed seeing the HS and College groups perform and returned to 155 with a lot of ideas for their own show.

The students of PS 1 want to know if YOU are going to help spread the smile!!!

Leadership Trainer Lilly Wasserman’s afterschool club at PS1 is featured on the Learning Matters website as an extension of the recent piece on PBS’s NewsHour featuring PS1 in the Bronx. The show on PBS explored the question of how we measure the success of our schools. To view the very insightful news clip go to www.learningmatters.tv and click on “From PBS NewsHour: Good school/bad school”. From that link you can also view an original “In the News” broadcast created by Lilly’s students and read a compelling blog about schools in the South Bronx. More clips are coming, including the most recent PS 1 student talk show on “Health, Happiness, and Peace”.