ASPIRE Program in Downey

Entrusted Legacy’s bottom line is to holistically train adults to be personally and professionally effective. ETL’s efforts are focused on adults who work with youth. Developing positive role models who effectively demonstrate the capacity, character and competency to practice the advanced citizenship required in a global society, is our quest. Entrusted Legacy is committed to the notion that “it takes a village” to positively influence the choices our next generation of adults make. From pre-schoolers to young adults, we must provide opportunities for youth to prepare and practice for the real adult world. Systematically we teach adults to routinely demonstrate and practice prevention strategies with youth, rather than waiting for problems to occur and having to implement intervention strategies.

This year with the support of Southern California Edison, ETL was able to bring a comprehensive staff development system to the ASPIRE afterschool staff in Downey, California. “The goal of ASPIRE is to provide a fun, positive, and safe learning environment. The program operates school days only from school dismissal until 6 p.m. ASPIRE students are provided with homework assistance, enrichment components on enhancing educational skills, and encouraging healthy life choices. The enrichment program is geared to be fun and educational for both the elementary and middle school sites.”  Michelle Jenny from ASPIRE had this to say:

“Consult 4 Kids is an important website for the afterschool field. Being able to provide technical assistance to staff at any time is invaluable. With less time and resources for in-person training, this website fills the void. Being able to assign videos or to have staff explore on their own provides flexibility. We are so grateful to Consult 4 Kids, Entrusted Legacy, and Southern California Edison for their contributions to make it possible for ASPIRE to use the website’s services. We hope to continue this partnership and hope to have funds in the future to be able to purchase this on our own.” 

On March 16, 2013, Entrusted Legacy sponsored a face-to-face training for the ASPIRE staff.  Stay tuned for pictures and comments.  

Leveling the Playing Field

Entrusted Legacy is committed to social justice and change and the development of people so they can practice the advanced citizenship necessary in a global society.  We are convinced that the path to ultimate success is not littered with people you have dominated, but rather with a cadre of people you have lifted up.  And so we work to “level the playing field.”

Closing both the achievement and opportunity gaps for young people is essential to create a society based on the principles of equality and valuing the dignity of every human being that is at the center of social justice.  People have captured this notion in a variety of ways.  We believe, as does the International Labor Organization, that a lasting, global peace must be founded on social justice.  We agree with Bill Harley when he sings:

                                             “We all live in the Milky Way; The Milky Way’s our galaxy

We all live in the Milky Way, It’s home to you and me.”

The lyrics go on to spell out that, “In that galaxy, there’s a star, and around the star a planet spins, and on the planet there is a fine sea which surrounds a land, that has a town, with a street and a fine house with a person in it—you or me, and we all live in a galaxy that’s home for us all.”  We accept Thomas Friedman’s pronouncement that the “World Is Flat,” and believe along with Tony Wagner that it is essential to close the “Global Achievement Gap.”  Perhaps most importantly we believe in the words of Margaret Mead:

“Never underestimate the power

of a small group of committed people 

to change the world. In fact

 it is the only thing that ever has.”

Join with us in our efforts to level the playing field, one school, one neighborhood, one afterschool program at a time.Contact us at support@entrustedlegacy.org to discover how you can help bring social justice to all youth.

Everyone Needs A Mentor

At Entrusted Legacy we believe in the “Big E,” that is “Everyone.”  We believe that if everyone does a little, if everyone learns how to be a positive role model and mentor, that we can change the world.  We know that being with an effective role model and mentor can change lives.  We know this because we can think about our own role models and mentors, both past and present, and the things we’ve learned from them.

Interestingly, in the play, Wicked, there is a lyric that captures the importance of having a positive role model and mentor:

“I know I’m who I am today because I knew you.

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun,

Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood…

Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

When we think about leaving a legacy, what better way to do this than to have someone say, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”  Mentoring is like throwing a rock into a placid lake.  The ripples begin in the center where the rock plunged, but the effects of that plunge can stretch to the edges of the lake, making an impact all along the way.  This is how we leave a legacy—we “Pay It Forward!” Let us know how you are being a positive role model and mentor for youth.  Share your stories with us at support@entrustedlegacy.org

Changing Lives

What have you done to intentionally influence a life in a positive manner?  There are three key words in this question:  intentionally, influence, and positive.  When Entrusted Legacy asks the preceding question, we think of these three words in a particular way.  For us, intentionally refers to doing things not only on purpose but with purpose, deliberately trying to accomplish a goal.  The word positive refers to a constructive quality or affirmative attribute, a quality of character that is beneficial to self and others, so when we put the two words together, we are referring to “supporting, with purpose, the development of beneficial character attributes.”  The third word, influence, is certainly different from insisting or forcing.  Influence has been defined as “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone….” www.google.com  So, when you string the words together, Entrusted Legacy is asking about the “capacity to support, with purpose, the development of beneficial character attributes in another person.”

Unfortunately, without much thought we influence others every day—sometimes in a positive way, sometimes negative, and other times we simply confirm the habits another person has already developed.  We believe that having the capacity to influence youth, intentionally, in a positive way is what a role model and mentor does every day with young people.  We can all think back to a role model or mentor that we have had who made a difference in our lives.  They impacted the person we have become today.  One person influenced by the leaders of Entrusted Legacy remarked:

 

"As a Lead Tutor [in an afterschool program], I met with …Brett as he coached, mentored, role modeled and guided us into turning theory discussions into real life situations. We learned how to lead and motivate people and help them become the best they could be. As I learned these significant skills, I found myself applying them into my everyday life. I used these skills to solve my personal problems and improve my relationships with family and friends. The skills I learned in those weekly trainings I still use today.”   Rosa

Changing the trajectory of a life is both awesome and humbling.  So we will ask again, “What have you done to intentionally influence a life in a positive manner?”  At Entrusted Legacy we are interested in learning about your successes.  Please share them with us at support@entrustedlegacy.org

Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?

We have all had the opportunity to ponder this quote about our perception—is the glass half-empty (on the downward cycle with little hope for rejuvenation) or is the glass half-full (ripe with possibilities to be even more successful).  Your mindset surrounding this quote is critically important for all of us.  Stephen Covey stated in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that, “…all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”  He then goes on to bring this notion into view when he talks about the design of a home that is so visualized in a person’s mind that when the blueprint is drawn, those thoughts are easily captured. It would be easy to focus on what isn’t working in education today.  It would be easy to focus on the glass half-empty when we read the newspaper and watch the news.  At Entrusted Legacy we believe that the way to combat the “half-empty” glass is envision “a cadre of well-trained people that form the nucleus around which learning organizations are built.”  We believe that this cadre of people, well-prepared to be a positive role model and mentor for youth, can change the future.  The first creation was determining what knowledge and comprehension needed to be shared with these positive role models and mentors.  The second creation was developing a system that would be available to youth leaders 24/7.  Now the challenge is to see to it that everyone has the access to this great content training.  The first creation is Entrusted Legacy.  The second creation relies on your willingness to make a difference. Please visit our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org and invest in our first creation today through your donation.  Together, we can make a difference.

A True Win-Win

We've heard it said that “people have the infinite capacity to wait to get even.”  Now when one first reads a statement like that the words that come to mind are revenge, retribution, payback, reprisal, and maybe even vengeance.  We immediately think about a time that we were wronged or belittled or underestimated and can conjure images not only of our own humiliated self but the perpetrators of those feelings.  In the book, Don’t Laugh at Me, the authors state, “Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names.  Don’t gain your pleasure from my pain.” 

In the movie and novel, Time To Kill, there is a poignant scene in which the character prompts the jury to think about a heinous crime and then flips the scene for the jury to consider how they would feel if that story applied to someone they loved.  This notion of “flipping the context” works equally well with the quote above, “people have the infinite capacity to wait to get even.”  What if we put a positive spin on those words?  Did you have a role model?  Did you have a mentor that helped you to believe in the possibility of you?  Do you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you are better off today because of that relationship?  Do you have the “infinite capacity to wait to get even?”  At Entrusted Legacy we are working hard to “get even” with all our mentors and role models.  We are committed to developing a critical mass by training and developing others to reach even more youth than we can reach on our own.

Go to our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org and exercise you capacity to “get even” with those who helped you by helping others.  Together the difference we can make is powerful!

Making a Difference

Are there any sweeter words to hear than, “I couldn't have done it without you?”  At the end of every campaign season and throughout the Hollywood awards season, we hear the powerful and the famous say those words.  But it isn't just those who hear those words from the powerful and famous who want to know they have made a difference.  We all desire to know that the world is a better place because we have lived, loved, laughed, and learned.  So how, when we are neither powerful nor famous can we make this happen?  We at Entrusted Legacy believe that the combined efforts of caring and sincere people across the nation can make a difference.  There is the notion of six degrees of separation which postulates that all of us are linked through a network of connections that emanate around each of us.  Mathematically, it brings forward the idea that we each know 200 people and that those 200 know 200 who know 200 and so on.  By the time you work through the exponential effects of this thinking, every one of us, no matter where we live and play, is connected.  As we see the world figuratively shrinking we can be even more convinced that this is the truth.

Entrusted Legacy believes that we can make a difference by developing positive role models and mentors for youth.  This requires that we get ready to “run this race”.  While practice and application of knowledge are key, having that knowledge to begin with is often the weakest link.  Please join us at Entrusted Legacy and help us to help those who work with youth in informal learning sessions each and every day.  Entrusted Legacy and our affiliate have the means and materials to support the development of role models and mentors 24/7 through web-based staff development.

Log on to our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org and invest in the future today.  We can do this work together.