I had a long conversation with my niece, the amazing Kim Pope last night. She's actually my niece-in-law, but I claim her straight up as niece, she's so cool. She works at Westminster School where her husband teaches. (He's totally cool too, but this is about her, not him.)
Her job? Davis Scholars Program Coordinator. They've got two pilot programs going on --—one domestic and one international—that award need-based scholarships to really motivated, smart kids from 1) America (first in family to attend college) and 2) anywhere in the world. Kim's recently gone to Budapest and Prague. Heads soon to Lakota reservation (where poverty is as bad as any third world nation), Ghana and Vietnam. She's looking for two kids for next year to come to their boarding school on a full scholarship. Kids who do well get supported through college.
This fills me up with hope. Lots of hope. I love to see people and programs that knit the world together instead of tearing it apart or blowing it up.
Thank you Kim, thank you Davis Scholars people. Hats off to you and your awesome work.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
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4 comments:
What a wonderful program! Yes, to hope, and to people like Kim and programs like the Davis Scholars. Thank you all...and to Betsy for sharing. Shining a light on programs and people like these encourages me to shine my own light a little brighter.
Thanks Anna. I've asked Kim to send me a picture of her in Eastern Europe -- hope I'll get it soon so I can post it.
Here's to shining lights....
Thinking a little more about this and your other post about the perfection of your world in the moment. The big picture is so often daunting, the tasks impossibly huge, but if we take it one small piece, one step at a time, it feels possible. Educate one young person, expose the children in one school to one other culture, weed one corner of my garden, clean out one file drawer, extend one hand in friendship. It goes to writing, too. That novel may be overwhelming, but if you take one character, one scene, one snippet of a scene, and write for one hour...and then another...it begins to feel possible.
Yes, one small step at a time.
Sometimes an hour of writing feels daunting to me. So then I set a timer for fifteen minutes. Just sit down and write for fifteen minutes. Almost always I'm hooked after that.
But those file drawers... nah! They stay pretty messy in my office.
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