School Makeover™ Corporate Charity Team Event
I recently walked on the stage as Timothy Geithner the recent United States Secretary of the Treasury was walking off the stage; his presentation was over and mine about a corporate charity team event was to begin. Although we were talking about completely different subjects, as a part of his talk he mentioned that “in America if you grow up in an affluent neighborhood you get a good education, and if you grow up in an underprivileged neighborhood you don’t;” which is true for the most part. However, there are important exceptions to this rule, schools that outperform other schools in spite of their surroundings. School Makeover™ Corporate Charity Team Event is based on rewarding these exceptional schools by painting, building, planting, and repairing the entire school.
This article will show you how your company or organization can significantly change the landscape of American education one school at a time, and defy the age old “truism” that bad neighborhoods equal bad education. If you are looking for a Corporate Charity Team Event why not choose one with maximum impact for people who deserve recognition and thanks.
Schools like all other organizations are representations of their leadership. Good schools generally have good leadership. Great schools always have great leadership. A great school is one that exceeds expectations. For example, schools that are located in areas that have 90% or more people living at or below poverty, and 90% or more minority students, and yet 90% or more of their students test at or above grade level. These schools are performing better than more affluent schools and better than schools with better resources.
You can help great schools and engage your entire company in the process. Events like School Makeover™ Corporate Charity Team Event and Backpack Builders™ Corporate Charity Team Event engage your employees directly in the work that ultimately transforms children’s lives. Although great schools are achieving incredible results, students often lack basic school supplies and the schools are almost always in disrepair.
School Makeover™ organizes 500 to 1,000 of your people per school into teams, and provides each team with the supplies and know-how to accomplish their specific school improvement task. In 2 hours, the combined total of all of the teams is a complete Makeover of a local school including painting, repairing, building and improving many aspects. Each school is hand selected as a great school, and their story becomes motivation to your whole group to do excellent work for the school, and to seek excellence in their jobs and in their own lives. The local community attends the event to cheer you on, and show their appreciation. We often adorn the school with a plaque and your company logo as a lasting memento of the event.
By rewarding schools based on excellence, we can dramatically influence the type of leaders that are promoted, and we can encourage school districts to look at these examples of success and reproduce them! In addition, creating amazing results is difficult and hard work, and these leaders deserve our support. They should know that they are supported in their excellence by a large group of concerned people who value results, hard work, and the potential of our future generations.
If they can do it why can’t other schools?
One of the biggest obstacles to more success stories is nothing more than perception. Like all businesses and organizations, it is often difficult to change the way we look at problems, challenges, and our business model in general. Unlike in today’s global business economy where if businesses don’t adapt and change constantly they can be obsolete in less than a year, schools lack the true impetus for change.
Through my work with School Makeover™, I have experienced a scenario where in the same building there were two separate schools, one side was a great school and the other an average school. Two schools under one roof: one average school run in the traditional way, and the other a great school. The average school did not learn or adapt one thing that the great school was doing to improve their results. They were literally right next door in the same building! The average school would be out of business if they were a business. This example is true of schools everywhere, not just next door. If another company was beating you every year, year after year, wouldn’t you want to know what they were doing and how?
People talk. When one school “gets something,” other schools begin asking “why?” When a school receives a complete Makeover in 2 hours, other schools begin asking “How?” … “How do we get that?” The answer to their question lies within the great schools: the techniques, commitment, strategies and passion they demonstrate daily.
In addition, numerous studies have concluded that the physical learning environment of a school significantly impacts the amount and quality of learning children do, and it influences attendance. No surprise. Most schools in neighborhoods where we find great schools are not in good condition. Many have old and dingy paint, government issue colors, old and outdated classrooms, limited green space, and in general appearances that match the feel of the neighborhood.
School is a warm safe place for many of the children who attend these schools. They like to come to school, it is their community. If it is a great school, they likely receive individual instruction that propels them forward in their learning. Learning becomes contagious, and their desire to attend school increases. Business can enhance this cycle in two important ways with School Makeover™:
- (1) Physically improve the learning environment making it more colorful, new paint, organized and clean classrooms, new garden space, new play structure, new ceiling tiles, new gym paint, etc…
- (2) Through your actions by actually doing the work, and your commitment of money, resources, time and energy you show these communities that what they are doing does matter, results matter, hard work is appreciated, and that people – including people in businesses – do care.
Rewarding great schools sends the right message to the children and leadership of these schools, and to the schools that refuse to even ask “How?” Companies, businesses, and large organizations can make an immediate impact on those that earned our support, and on the direction of education.
Contact Us You can learn more about scheduling your own School Makeover™. Together we can change the direction of education one school at a time.
