Jimmy Had a Dream. It's up to others to make it a reality.

The annual Cabrini Connections Golf Benefit is named in memory of Jimmy Biggs, a young man who grew up in Cabrini Green with the help of the volunteer tutors/mentors of Cabrini Connections. Jimmy became part of the tutor/mentor program when he was in 2nd grade. He graduated from high school in 1995 and became part of the Cabrini Connections staff.

Jimmy championed the goals of Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Jimmy had a personal goal of recruiting 100 CEOs and "people of influence" to be his personal mentors and his partner in bringing resources to Cabrini Connections and similar mentoring-to-career programs throughout Chicago. Jimmy was working toward this vision when he died suddenly in August 2000. Because of the friends and "people of influence" Jimmy met at the annual golf benefit, the event is named in his honor.

At last Thursday's golf benefit more than 120 people gathered for golf, dinner, a silent auction, and networking. One of the guests was Tangela Smith Marlow, who was in Cabrini Connections the same time as Jimmy, and has now finished college and is a successful businesswoman.

Among the guests we had business executives,lawyers, pro football players, and many others who have the potential to be one of the 100 leaders who make Jimmy's vision a reality.

How does one get into this club? Write a check for $5000 and send it to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il. 60642.

Everyone at the golf dinner, or the annual year end dinner on June 4th, was able to see for themselves how much our current students and alumni value what Cabrini Connections offers.

All you need to do is look in the mirror, and look in your network. If you have the financial ability to be one of Jimmy's 100 leaders, please send your check this week, or sometime in the next six months.

If you don't have the personal capacity, but know others who do, then introduce them to Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and ask them to join Jimmy's Club. If you can't write a $5,000 check. Write a $2500 check. If 100 leaders take this role each year we can stabilize our funding, and dramatically expand the impact we have on current and former students, and on helping similar programs grow in other neighborhoods.

I was not able to stay for the dinner, because I caught some sort of flu bug, and was running a 103 fever by the time the dinner started. That meant that our other volunteers, staff, and board members had to fill in for me. Think what that means.

Everyone needs to be an owner, not just Dan, Ray, and a few others. I read a book titled The Spider and The Starfish (given to me by one of our volunteers) and I've posted a link here.

This is the concept of leaderless organizations, or movements, where many people take responsibility for the success of the enterprise.

Anyone reading this, or looking at our web sites, or who attends an event like the Golf Outing, Year End Dinner, or Tutor/Mentor Conference, can take the same responsibility that I've taken for 30 years. When that happens we'll recruit Jimmy's 100 leaders, and we'll do more to help the kids and volunteers who are part of tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections.

What actions are needed to assure that all of the young people who join Cabrini Connections in 7th grade are finishing high school in six year, then starting jobs and careers after another six years of college, vocational or military experience?

Please review this pdf, which illustrates the challenge, and vision, we have of supporting current and former members of Cabrini Connections, and the Montgomery Ward/Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, which started in 1965.


Read the blog articles on networking, and that talk about the work we do.

Think of the role YOU can take of introducing people in your own network, to the information we post on our web sites that shows ways people in business, education, religion, public health and other sectors can support the journey of kids through school and to jobs, via organized, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections.

Your donations of time, and money, make this possible. Please contribute today.

Connections for Life. Donors make this possible.

Staying Connected - Rebuilding Cabrini Connections on the Internet

During the past month I have re-connected with the following Cabrini Connections student alumni: Monique Allen, Dashay Bell, Maurice Kirkman-Bey, Monique Kirkman-Bey, Rahsaan Martin, Tawanna Blake Ross, Timothy Purdis, Alberta Duff , Demetris Smith, and Tramaine Montell Ford .

I also connected with former volunteers Bruce Boynick, Aimee Runyon and former Cabrini Connections leaders Gena Schoen and Claudia Crilly Bellucci

Some of these students were part of Cabrini Connections in 1994 through 1998. Others are more recent alumni. They are all connected to Cabrini Connections, each other, and a growing number of adults who don't live in poverty, and may not even live in Chicago, because of the work we've been doing for the past 16 years.

This illustrates how much potential we have for building networks that work during adult lives, when it's even more important to have friends who can help you with jobs, health, family and other issues that we all struggle with every day. I hope you'll all make an effort to be part of this community, now, and in the future. Read about how we can use the Internet to keep kids and volunteers connected
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/04/building-long-term-networks-of-support.html

Every year since 1992, when we formed Cabrini Connections, I have been reaching out to friends, family, college fraternity brothers, and other people I have met, asking them to make financial donations to support the program.

We're a non profit organization. We depend on charitable donations to operate. We have needed this money each year. We need to ask each year for new donations, to fund that year's work. If we did not do that, and if many had not responded, we would not have the connections that I'm making on Facebook and that so many others have built because there is a Cabrini Connections.

More than 700 volunteers and 500 youth have been part of Cabrini Connections since 1992. Many more volunteers and Cabrini Green residents were part of the Montgomery Ward - Cabrini Green Tutoring Program, which was started in 1965, and from which Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection originated.

Many of these volunteers are already taking the role defined by this graphic. They are the RED dot, reaching out to people in their own network, asking for donations each year.

We need more people to take this role. We need your help now, in May and June, 2009.

However, we will still need your continued help in 2010 and 2011. That's the only way we can build the on-line connections between all of you that can help each of you in your adult lives.

Please visit the donor page at Cabrini Connections and find a way to offer your financial support, and to help us find the donors we need to continue this program.

Thank you from myself, and from all of those who have been connected because of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Arts and Video Festival Connects Students and Volunteers with the world

Last Saturday evening the Cabrini Connections Art and Video Festival drew together more than 100 friends, volunteers, students, parents and supporters of Cabrini Connections.

Some were people we've not seen in a while, like Claudia Crilly Bellucci, who was one of the first people on staff at Cabrini Connections in 1993. She was a volunteer from the early 1980s. We've now connected on Facebook, and through Claudia's network we're re-connecting with others who were part of Cabrini Connections in the past.

Others were family members. I was surprised to see one of my wife's cousins who attended the event because another family member, Lisa Hung, spread the news about the Festival to the family network.

Another family member was El Da'Sheon Nix's Mom, who came in from Ohio for the week. She was really a "MOM" in the way she took charge of food and beverages and cleanup at the end of the event.

In addition, several of the parents came to see the new documentary video, title This Is What I know: Our Lives, Our Truths, Our Stores, and see the art that their kids had been working on. You can see part of the video, and other videos, http://www.cabriniconnections.net/video.

We don't know how much money was raised from selling art, or from donations, but while the bidding was going on, El Da'Sheon was in touch, by cell phone, with one of his buddies on the Pittsburg Steelers, who was bidding on the 2009 Art Club Mural.

This just shows how our event in Chicago was connecting our kids and volunteers with the world. If you take on a role of network building, you can help us build connections with people in your own network. Some will use our ideas to help build tutor/mentor programs in their own communities. Some may become tutors/mentors with us, or with other programs. Hopefully some will become benefactors, making long-term donations that assure that we can continue to offer Cabrini Connections to students and volunteers for many years to come.

You can send donations to Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, 800 W. Huron, Chicago, Il. 60642 or you can use this form to make an on-line donation.

Who is in your network?

This is a graphic created on Facebook, showing people who are connected to me and Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

The pink area represents fraternity brothers from the Acacia chapter at Illinois Wesleyan, who have made donations totaling more than $60,000 since 1992. Some have been volunteers who helped us launch this organization. Some have been tutors.

The blue area represents volunteers who have been tutors and mentors, and staff. Many have roots at Northwestern University and so that shows as a part of my network. On our NU Ning page we're trying to build a network of Northwestern support for tutoring/mentoring.

Just above the blue section are photos of several of our alumni who have connected with us on Facebook. We want to see this section grow because we need to support our alumni where they live and where they are now raising their own kids and we need them to support what we're doing to help them and other kids living in inner city Chicago.

The green section to the left represents people in Chicago who are part of other tutor/mentor programs, or part of knowledge networks who we are connecting via our web sites with each other, and with the kids and volunteers at Cabrini Connections. You can even see two of my nieces in the light blue section just above the green area.

These represent just a few of the thousands of people that I've connected to Cabrini Connections and the Tutor/Mentor Connection since 1993 and who are providing time, talent and dollars to help us do our work.

As we head through 2009 and beyond, I encourage each volunteer, leader, student or friend to map their own network, and work with a purpose to share information that encourages members of these networks to provide the donations of time, talent and dollars we require to do this work.

While the economy is a disaster, there are millions of people who are still working and who are willing to make donations of $25 to $100 if asked. There are thousands of affluent people who still have millions of dollars in wealth, even if they have seen this wealth depleted in the past year. We had four donations of $30,000 to $59,000 in 2008 and can received more donations like this, if you reach through your networks to find these people.

When Obama says "it is up to us" I think he means that each of us needs to learn to mobilize our network into an army of support for social change and economic prosperity.

Who is in your network?