An Ultimate Example of Encouragement (College Scholarship for 61 sixth-graders)

An Ultimate Example of Encouragement

(College Scholarship for 61 sixth-graders)

~Excerpt from “BE A PEOPLE PERSON” by Dr. John C. Maxwell, “Leadership Guru for Millions worldwide”


They story of Eugene Lang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Lang)gives us an ultimate example of encouragement. Entrepreneur Lang was Success magazine’s “Successful Man Of the Year in 1986”. The following is a part of a feature article about Lang’s Encouragement of others.

A gray-haired man stands alone in the center of the auditorium stage – a distinguished, paternal presence sporting a fine wool suit and the barest trace of a mustache. He scans the sunlit room, with its peeling paint and frayed draperies, but his gaze lingers on the people.

They are Black and Hispanic men and women who fill most of the seats in the auditorium. Though some do not speak English, their attention is fixed on the man at the podium. But his speech is not aimed at them. He has returned to this place where he once was a student to address the “61 sixth-graders, dressed in blue caps and gowns, who are seated in the front rows.”

“This is your first graduation – just the perfect time to DREAM,” he says. “Dream of what you want to be, the kind of life you wish to build. And believe in that dream. Be prepared to work for it. Always remember, each dream is important because it is your dream, it is your future. And it is worth working for it.”

“You must study,” he continues. “You must learn. You must attend Junior High School, High School, and then College. You can go to college. You must go to college. Stay in school and I’ll…” The speaker pauses, and then, as if suddenly inspired, he blurts out:“I will give each of you a COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP.”

For a second there is silence, and then a wave of emotion rolls over the crowd. All the people in the auditorium are on the feet, jumping and running, cheering and waving and hugging one another. Parents rush down the aisles to their children. “What did he say?” one mother calls out in Spanish. “It’s money! Money for college!” her daughter yells back with delight, collapsing into her parent’s arms.

The place was an elementary school in a poverty-stricken, drug-ridden, despair-plagued Harlem neighborhood. The speaker was multimillionaire entrepreneur Eugene Lang, who 53 years earlier had graduated from that very school. The date was June 25, 1981, and the big question was whether the warm and ever-confident Lang, a man who believes that “each individual soul is of infinite worth and infinite dignity,” would fulfill his promise.

Well, he did and he still is. In fact, these kids are now getting ready to graduate from high school and only one has dropped out of high school since sixth grade. You have to understand, in this community, 90 percent of the kids drop out of high school.

Lang began “I Have a DREAM” foundation and now other entrepreneurs in New York City are also going into classrooms offering the same kind of scholarships. Now there are 500-600 kids in Harlem who will receive this reward if they don’t drop out of school.

People need to be encouraged. Eugene Lang believed in these kids and it made all the difference in how they lived THE REST OF THEIR LIVES.