… Read more »Rarely has a book come along that is so easy to endorse. The Citizen Leader would be wonderful reading for every college and high school student in America and why not their parents as well. This thoughtful reflection and action-oriented guide on authenticity, character, and responsibility will stand up to the test of time because it speaks to timeless and fundamental human needs that dwell deep inside each one of us.
Author: Peter Alduino
Words to Inspire: Oseola McCarty
If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to do things you can be proud of.
It’s heartwarming to know that good, selfless people still exist in our society. One such person was Oseola McCarty, who died at the age of 91. Her obituary in the New York Times stated that, in anticipation of her death, at age 87 in 1995, Miss McCarty donated $150,000 to a scholarship fund at the University of Southern Mississippi to help poor students.… Read more »
Words to Inspire: Robert Kennedy
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest of walls of resistance.
Robert Kennedy… Read more »
Words to Inspire: Miss Julia Coleman
When I was a young boy in Plains, Georgia, a beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, introduced me to Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace. She interpreted that powerful narrative as a reminder that
the simple human attributes of goodness and truth can overcome great power.
She also taught us that
… Read more »an individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability but can influence even the greatest human events.
Words to Inspire: Christopher Evans
… Read more »In college, during the summer months, I was employed as a forestry firefighter. On wildfires, working with hand tools like shovels, heavy rakes and axe-like hoes, we formed up in lines to cut firebreaks before the advancing fires. We were always told by out growling boss to “take a swipe, kid,” at the vegetation with your tools and leave the rest for the person behind you, When you looked back down the mountain at the end of our line of workers, you’d see a clear, clean line of firebreak.
Words to Inspire: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The life of a man (or woman) consists not in seeing visions, and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanaugh
Words to Inspire: Steve Jobs
… Read more »Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Citizen Leaders: The Six Founding Members of FoodCorps
FoodCorps is a nationwide network of volunteers combating our country’s childhood obesity epidemic by organizing and recruiting volunteers to develop and coordinate:
- School nutrition programs that teach kids what healthy food is
- School gardens that engage kids in learning about the food they eat and how to grow healthy produce
- Farm to School programs that put locally grown foods in school lunches
The FoodCorps mission and organization emerged from hundreds of hours of conversations with the input of thousands of individuals in the many communities it now serves.… Read more »
Words to Inspire: Theodore Roosevelt
… Read more »“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends him or herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Citizen Leaders: All-Americans Hudson Taylor and Colin Joyner
Citizen leadership is:
Character and courage: men, women, young adults and teenagers acting and speaking with the courage of their character day in and day out, in private and public – at home, in school, at work, in their club, in church and temple, on a team, in a troop, in the support group, in the neighborhood.
Courage of character begins with their getting clear on who they are and how they want to be in the world, so they are or become the person they’d want to follow, and by extension the person others would want to follow.… Read more »