Nov. 7, 2006 - Today on the Tutor/Mentor Blog I wrote about Chicago's Principal for a Day Program and encouraged corporations to create an Adopt a Neighborhood strategy that supports schools and non-school programs in neighborhoods where kids have too few adults to support learning and career aspirations.  

If you share this message with people in business and professional leadership, you can help us expand corporate stratgies and increase support for volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs throughout the country.

December 19, 2006 - Since Chicago is such an enthusiastic sports town, and the Bears are having a great season, it's not surprising that there would be so much anguish in the editorial, news and sports pages about the troubles of Terry TANK Johnson, a defensive lineman for the Bears.

In my blog I wrote about this, under the heading TANK is just TIP OF THE ICEBERG.  While everyone's focusing on Tank and the Team, too few are focusing on the thousands of inner-city kids living in neighborhoods where the  most dominant role model is often a gang member, an ex-con, or some sort of thug.   We're raising thousands of Tank Johnson's and will continue to do so until we get more consistent investment in volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs that surround youth with a wider range of adult experiences and aspirations, and learning opportunities that help youth move throuch school and into jobs and careers.

when kids will now that they can earn money and live good without ganging,with real perspective work they won't join gangs,but if general economic situation is poor they will search easier ways to get money .

http://www.tradebooming.com/

There's an election for Mayor coming up in Chicago. Then we'll focus on the next presidential election. After all of the millions of dollars are spent,will it really make a difference.  What can leaders do? What can we the citizens do?  Read my blog at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2007/02/after-election-leadership-strategies.html 

Do you blog tutor/mentor issues?  Can you exchange blogs with me in May 2007 while we're hosting the Tutor/Mentor Conference in Chicago?

Today I've written a story for my blog that encourages "out of the box" thinking to innovate solutions to poverty and poorly performing schools.

By 'out of the box' I mean, out of the SCHOOL building as the only place where learning can reach kids, and the only group of leaders who should be held accountable for the success in kids moving to jobs and careers.

You can read this at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2007/03/out-of-box-thinking-needed-to-improve.html 

I launched the idea of a Tutor/Mentor Blog exchange in a November 2006 article. I did not have much response, but kept trying to recruit bloggers during the past few months. In March 2007, I formally launched the May Blog Exchange.

I feel that I've had a great response. I summarized the responses in a May post.  One of the groups was Vermont Mentoring, who launched their blog using the Cabrini Connections Blog as an example.  Then, the day before the conference, I received another contribution, with a cartoon that any tutor/mentor program can use to recruit volunteers.

While I plan to continue exchanging blogs over the summer, I'd like to do the next blog exchange in late August, where our collective efforts can help recruit volunteers for tutor/mentor programs.

If you create your own blog, and link it together, with the Tutor/Mentor Blog, you can help create the visibility that draws thousands of new volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs all over the country.

Do you blog? Introduce yourself to us and let's get connected.

We have an RSS feed on the home page of this web site, with links to the most current message on the http://tutormentor.blogspot.com blog.

I continue to seek out other tutor/mentor programs who are using blogs to tell their story. If  you do this in your program, please connect with me via a blog article, or a comment here, or on the T/MC blog.

Today my blog contains a letter that I sent to an education research leader in Texas.  It's an example of the type of introduction I send every day to people in Chicago and all over the country.  Here's the blog address:

http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/05/open-letter-invitation-to-network.html

After posting the message on the blog I sent this message to some alumni of the Montgomery Ward corporation, who are in my network on Linked in:

LinkedIn ------------ Daniel Bassill has sent you a message Date: 5/03/2008 Subject: Lessons from Montgomery Ward used to help inner city kids I posted an article on my blog today that illustrates how the advertising and multi-store support strategies that we all learned at Mongtomery Ward are being used to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region. The Blog Address is http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2008/05/open-letter-invitation-to-network.html I hope you'll read it, and use the letter template to introduce the work we're doing to people throughout your industry, and in cities where you do business. What we're doing in Chicago can and should be duplicated in every big city and can be supported by you and other Ward alumni, regardless of where you are. We'll be celebrating our year-end dinner in June, and I invite you to become a donor, to help us continue to keep the promise we make of "doing all we can to help these kids be in jobs and starting careers by age 25". Visit http://www.cabriniconnections.net/donate if you'd like to help. I don't have the $250 million Wards was spending each year on advertising. I depend on our volunteers and leaders like you to help build this advertising reach and frequency, as part of your own efforts to help kids stay in school and stay safe in non-school hours. If you'd like to know more just send me an email. Thanks for helping me learn this strategy while I worked with you all at Wards. Dan Bassill -------------------- You can do this, too. Use your blog and your other networking tools to constanly expand the network of people who help you draw attention, and resources, to you, and to other tutor/mentor programs in your community.