I just got back to the office after a whirlwind of workshops last week that took me from Harlan Community Academy High School on Chicago’s south side to the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education (ICRE), a residence for children with severe disabilities, to the City Project High School in Milwaukee, an alternative high school program. It all started on Monday when I found out that because of limited funding, the ICRE students were at risk for having to cancel thier life-changing scuba dive trip through DiveHeart this summer. The reason the scuba trip is so important to the students is because of the way being submerged underwater allows them to move in a way they are unable to on land. As one ICRE student beautifully explained, “My disabilities make me feel like I am trapped in a cage, but when I am underwater that cage is unlocked.”
Tom, the president of Dreams for Kids, and I decided that it would be really powerful if our Dream Leaders from Harlan and Whitney Young high school would do their fundraising projects to send the ICRE kids on thier scuba trip. Then, in turn, the ICRE students would do a fundraising project to send other kids with disabilities on adventure activities through Dreams for Kids Extreme Recess Program. I am so moved when I think of the power of these gifts being passed on full circle! It is a radical idea, I suppose, that we are having kids who have disablities or very limited resources on Chicago’s South Side raise money for others, so I was curious to see how the Harlan students would react when I presented this idea to them.
They were absolutely elated! With my direction, they quickly formed groups and began planning thier fundraising projects. One student came up to me and almost shyly said, ”Now, I don’t mean to be selfish, but I thought it would help motivate everyone iif there was a prize for the team that raised the most money.” I was intrigued by her idea, but I hesitated, assuming the “prize” she spoke of would be something like an Ipod or something else beyond our budget. I asked her what she had in mind. “Well,” she explained, “I was thinking it would be really cool if as the prize we got to actually meet some of the students with disablities.” I was caught off guard, as I was reminded of just how remarkable these students are. The only prize this girl wanted was to be able to make a human connection with another child. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that on my own, but I think it is even more amazing that the Dream Leaders program has been built by its participants!
Next, came the Dream Leaders workshop to the ICRE students on Thursday. I had been anxiously anticipating this workshop for weeks! Because all the students have very different abilities, the challenge for me was to adapt the Dream Leaders program in a way that ensured that every student could do every activity. I was also nervous, like at Harlan, how kids who have such limited resources themselves would react to spending their energy fundraising for others. As I had learned at Harlan the day before, it is because of the struggles that the ICRE students have to live with everyday, that they are so committed to making life better for others. As one girl explained, “It goes full circle. Being helped makes people want to help.” The most emotional moment of the workshop came when students wrote letters to people who had impacted their lives. It was impossible to listen to these kids read their letters, most of them crying as they read, without tearing up. They described with moving honesty the pain both physcially and emotionally that define their lives, but more importantly they described the love someone had given them to make it bearable each day. The students understood the important connection. Every single one of them had been touched by the love of another, and now they had the opportunity to be that person for someone else. I smiled as I watched each student leave the room a little prouder, a littler more determined than they had came.
The week ended with my trip to Milwaukee to see how the Dream Leaders program was going at the CITIES Project High School. It was amazing to me to see how a program that we created has already touched lives in another state! Watching the students in the workshops and speaking to them about how the program had impacted them blew me away! These were students who I had never met before that were already being touched by my ideas! I had the honor of reading letters the students wrote about the program. One student wrote, “Dream Leaders is a great program. It changed some people’s lives. What I like about Dream Leaders is that people care about us and want to be a part of our life.” Again, it was the same lesson that I had learned at Harlan and ICRE. People are always looking at the magic trick to get through to teenagers. Well, these students weren’t looking for some materialistic gain or financial reward. It didn’t matter if these students lived in the constant uncertainties of Chicago’s inner-city, or the constant challenges that come with having severe disabilities, or constant hurdles from being in an alternative school program in Milwaukee. The message was the same. They wanted to be cared for, and in turn, care for others. How much we all have to learn from them!