Be the Person You'd Want to Follow
Citizen Leaders are the men, women, young adults and teens who take stock of the kind of world they want to help shape for the people they care about and act to make it so.
—Peter Alduino, Author, The Citizen Leader
In a blog post 9 months ago, I applauded Patrick Burke, Brian Kitts and Glenn Witman as citizen leaders for their efforts to eradicate homophobia from amateur and professional hockey.… Read more »
Patrick Burke , Brian Kitts , Glenn Witman think athletes should be judged by talent, heart and work ethic, and not sexual orientation. Together, they have founded the You Can Play Project which works to guarantee that athletes are given a fair opportunity to compete, and are judged by other athletes and fans alike by what they contribute to the sport or their team’s success and not by their sexual orientation.… Read more »
Eagle Scout Zach Wahls challenged the Boy Scouts of America’s anti-gay policy in May 2012 when he delivered three boxes of petitions demanding change, signed by more than 275,000 people.
Inspired by the story of Jennifer Tyrrell, a den mother forced to resign from her seven-year-old son’s Cub Scout pack because of her sexual orientation, and the groundswell of support she has received since, Mr.… Read more »
…10 year-old Milo Cress started BeStrawFree, a website that encourages restaurants to cut plastic waste by not automatically offering plastic straws to customers. “I’m not out to ban plastic straws,” he said. “Just cut back on them. Way back, if possible.” Full story >>… Read more »
…Abby Goldberg, of Grayslake, Ill collects 155,000 signatures to petition Gov. Pat Quinn not sign legislation (SB 3442) that would make it illegal for her town — or any other one statewide — to ban the use of plastic bags. Abby is 12 years old. She explained to the Chicago Sun-Times. “You can make a difference no matter how old you are.”… Read more »
…Ryan Slezia, a former student at Texas A&M, mobilized over 650 current students to block a planned protest of a soldier’s funeral by the mean-spirited members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Full story >>… Read more »
…Zach Whals, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student, addressed the Iowa Legislature about the strength of his family headed by his two moms. Mr. Whals spoke with conviction before the House of Representatives in an effort to dissuade and even admonish its members intent on amending that state’s constitutional and repealing the existing right of Iowa same-sex couples to marry.
In my past blog posts, I have regularly described a citizen leader as the man, the woman, the young adult and the teen who applies their character, their convictions and their courage to speak up, take action and lead efforts that contribute to the community and serve the common good.… Read more »
Surfrider Foundation in their own words:
Our mission is the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network.
You can think about that as three concepts:
“Protection and enjoyment”, we don’t want to put a velvet rope around a beach and tell people to keep off. We’re surfers, we’re beach goers, we’re watermen… we enjoy the coasts.… Read more »
Plastic Pollution Coalition is a global collaboration and effort of individuals, businesses and organizations inspired by and working together towards a vision of a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on people, animals and the environment.
The Coalition was developed and is currently championed by this handful of founders and staff whose dedicated actions on behalf of the common good exemplify Citizen Leadership:
FoodCorps is a nationwide network of volunteers combating our country’s childhood obesity epidemic by organizing and recruiting volunteers to develop and coordinate:
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 »