CARY Newsletter Fall 2008
Columnist Leonard Pitts Headlines CARY Luncheon
Inspires Audience to Help Youth Find Their Destiny
On October 15, Leonard Pitts, Jr., one of America’s best-known columnists, spoke to 289 CARY supporters about “What Works.” His noted series of columns profile programs that are truly effective in helping children.
Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton introduced Mr. Pitts as a renowned writer who “entertains, educates and inspires” us through 250 newspapers across the country. “We brought Mr. Pitts here to learn what works across America.”
Mr. Pitts began by referring to a TV commercial that showed famous people, such as Aretha Franklin, working at ordinary jobs and not fulfilling their destiny. He said that every child has a destiny — but not every child gets there. “The secret to happiness in this life,” he said, ”is to find out what you love to do and get someone to pay you to do it. How easy it is to miss the thing that you’re supposed to be.” Mr. Pitts compared life to a bus pulling away, leaving you behind.
He said, “How do you change when resources and vision are limited?” He emphasized that there must be an “analysis to this paralysis. I can’t do everything but I can do something.” Mr. Pitts asked his readers to nominate successful programs in making change and he began traveling across the country to spotlight the programs.
Mr. Pitts asked the audience, “If we know what works, why do we do it on a small scale? If CARY works and produces a 50% decline in youth violence, why is the program not happening nationally?” He commented that if our nation is going to “pay anyway, why not pay on the front end as an investment in change?” It is human nature to want quick fixes — “we stand in front of the microwave and say hurry-up.”
He talked about “an equation we seem to have forgotten” — that in the 1960’s young people took for granted that each one of us had the ability to remake society and felt empowered. One person, Rosa Parks, for example, can change the world but you have to know you have the power to make change, Pitts emphasized.
He gave an example of Jermaine Barnes, youngest of four born to a single mother. The school described the youth “as hell” but one day his teacher, Janice Klein Young, asked him to paint a picture of flowers. She soon realized Jermaine had the potential to become an artist and began tutoring him after school. Jermaine began selling his work at art shows and has now been compared to artist Georgia O’Keefe. Without Ms. Young, Jermaine might have “missed his destiny.”
Mr. Pitts told the audience, “You are here today because you care about children. You are sick and tired of seeing children miss their destiny. There are two ways you can leave this event. You can go back to socializing with your friends and business associates or you can leave understanding that changing the world is your birthright.”
Mr. Pitts further commented that we have become people drugged by “things” — technology gives us more ways to “say” things but “less to say than ever before. Peace, for example, is not for sale at the mall.” There are things that enable you to look inward, for example, planting a tree that you won’t live to see grow to full height.
Mr. Pitts was preceded by CARY Board President Robert King, Executive Director Adrian L. Moore and APD Assistant Chief Al Eells, who spoke about the re-activation of the Police Athletic League (PAL) and Police Explorers programs.
Event sponsors were Continental Airlines, The Austin American-Statesman, Miller Blueprint and Latham Design.