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Announcer: Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome to the stage, City Year Trustee, Mr. Jonathan
Lavine.
[Music]
Jonathan Lavine: My very first gift to City Year was $18, when I was a student. In the Jewish faith, 18 is a
sign of luck or life, it's a lucky number, it's a very common gift to give, some multiple
of 18 on an important occasion. And I guess it was a really important occasion because
it began a 20-year relationship where I have been so proud to watch the tremendous growth
achieved by City Year. Over the years I have watched them sharpen their focus and really
target the unique capacity to accomplish the greatest impact on our communities. By focusing
on the nations dropout crisis, and recruiting and training and deploying young idealistic leaders, who
believe that they can change the potential in students and develop the opportunity, City
Year is changing the world and they are delivering. So that at that bus stop today, will be kids
who will have all the same privileges and opportunities that I've had.
As you know, City Year has a really clear vision. Students are dropping out in alarming
numbers, and the impact of dropping out effects students ability to obtain and maintain employment,
robs our communities of potential leaders and costs our society in terms of wages, taxes,
strain on public support. This is the number one economic problem we have. It's a civil
rights problem, its an economic problem, it's a fairness problem. It's an American problem
we can solve.
City Year has also really done a great job of identifying the students who need the most
help. The organization changes the trajectory of countless students each year. When you
look at an investment you ask yourself does it have a good product? Is it sustainable?
Does it have good leadership? And do they husband their resources well? There has not
been a day in the last 20 years where I have ever thought that City Year did not get A+'s
on all of those dimensions.
My wife and I, when we originally gave our gift, were a little shy about public announcements
and things like that. City Year's work speaks for itself. We have not done anything special
except recognize what City Year has earned every single day since they started. And we
talked to our kids about it. My daughter reminded me that one of things we have always talked
to them about is you can't be a bystander, you must be an up stander. And with our gift,
we are delighted to be standing with City Year, because they deserve it.
I was doing a service project with our kids at a place called Cradles for Crayons in Boston,
which is an organization that Michael serves on the board of. The head of one of the partner
organizations of Cradles talked about her journey, and commented that in the 10th grade
she was going to drop out of school. But there was one intervention that was made -- somebody
got her a backpack, so she could carry her stuff, so she could walk a mile and a half
to music lessons. That one intervention led this kid, who was going to drop out of school,
to get a full scholarship to college, to a conservatory.
She reminded us all that it's seemingly small things; it's everybody doing their
part every day. There's an old proverb called "For Want of a Nail". For want of a nail
the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider
was lost, for want of a rider the message was lost, for want of a message the battle
was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost —all for the want of a nail.
City Year can be that nail. You corps members are doing it every single day. And you are
changing the lives of people who 30 years from now are going to change the lives of
people 30 years later. Thank you for everything you do, congratulations to City Year for this
wonderful summit, and keep up the good work.
[Applause]