A r t i c l e s
(See
sample at bottom.)
2007
Benefit Dinner Speech
Reflection on My Experience at Crotona
Alum's Testimonial
Crotona's Mission Comes Full Circle
Why Alumni Enroll Their Sons in
Crotona
Thank You Crotona!
2006
Benefit Dinner Speech
Reflection on My Experience at Crotona
2005
Friendship
What It's Really All About
2004
Path to Success
Exploring Fundamentals
Technology
Is Not Magic
Using
Technology Requires Virtue
My
First Experience with Crotona
Awakening
Appearance
vs. Reality
Being
Good Instead of Looking Good
2003
Step 1: Finding the Wound
Working on the Real Problem
The
Calculus of Virtue
Inculcating
Virtue
The
Big Picture
Living
with Direction
Perspectives
of a Law Abiding Citizen
Reflections
on Racism
A
Letter to a Marine Mentor
Staying
in Touch
Aspirations
of Liberation
Genuine
Freedom
A
Unique Experience
Young
Professional Volunteer
A
Wake-up Call
Educating
the Educator
New
Year's Resolutions
The
Desire to Struggle
2002
Wisdom
& Man
Chess
& Sacrifice
An
Analogy of Life
The
Kind of Men We Want to Be
The
Meaning of Leadership
Study
and Patience
A
Path to Discovering Value
Encountering
Perfection through Art
The
Ties that Bind
Delta
Sigma Phi Fraternity (Columbia University)
Leadership Training at Crotona
My
Most Memorable Experience with Crotona
Student
visits Bronx V.A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sample:
"
W i t n e s s o f C r o t o n a
S e r v i c e "
General
Steele, Mr. Liana, Mr. Cooperman, Mr. Austin and distinguished
guests, good evening and thank you for supporting the organization
that has been a second home to me, the South Bronx Educational
Foundation.
I'm John Deida and I've been a student in the Crotona programs for
the last five years. Throughout these years, I've experienced things
that have changed my outlook on life. Within these experiences, I've
met people who have opened my eyes to much
of the world I've encountered with Crotona's help. Not only have I
grasped a better appreciation for who I am as a person, a student
and a family member, but I have also gained an understanding of
politics, business and international affairs in a way that more
deeply explores these topics that are often treated superficially,
especially by my peers. Perhaps most of all, I've developed in the
Crotona family how to truly use my reason for a better understanding
of ordinary life.
I first joined Crotona expecting nothing more than just a place to
go and have fun with my friends. Instead I discovered a group of
giving and caring individuals whose mere presence showed me that I
am a person of great worth. They instilled in me a zest for learning
and taught me that love and compassion are traits that anyone can
have, and should have, regardless of race and gender. Through these
lessons I developed the strength to stand up for what I believe is
right despite peer pressure or popular opinion.
As a Crotona volunteer, I read articles from The Economist and
Wall
Street Journal and held discussions with students. The subject
matter was usually of national and global importance. First I helped
students to understand the issues in the articles and then how these
issues may affect them personally. I learned a lot from preparing
for these discussions by first having discussed them with Crotona's
staff. I learned to see the relationships between current events and
what they may say about society in general and our own culture. For
example, one time I read a Wall Street Journal article that covered
the increased use of Pay Day loans. After giving what I thought was
a pretty intelligent sounding summary of the article, one staff
member asked me, "so, what might this say about our
culture?" And I said, "phuff, I don't know!" Then
after a long pause the staff member filled me in on an important
point of the article: that because Pay Day loans have such high
interest rates, people who take them will end up loosing more money
than they would have if they just saved for the long-term. I said,
"ya, ok". The staff member started to draw out a
relationship between what I thought were two apparently different
things: cash advances and pursuing the greater good. I understood
that the increase of cash advances may show a weakness in our
culture in which people often live by doing what they want to do at
the moment rather than by what they ought to do for their greater
good, in this case planning for the future rather than spending
money on frivolous pleasures. Many things are good in and of
themselves, but just because something is good and one can have it
doesn't mean that one should have it. Pay Day loans seem be an
example of how much people can act imprudently to satisfy an
immediate urge. Therefore, I learned that self-mastery is necessary
to attain the greater good, and that the greater good leads to
greater happiness, which frivolous pleasures can't give.
With what I've learned I know I am now more responsible to live with
greater dignity, which is expressed by seeing others for who they
really are as people. Without Crotona I might not have learned the
valuable lesson of using my reason, or at least not this early in my
life. I feel better prepared for college and adulthood because I
think I have a better understanding of what culture really is. Many
people, when they think of the Bronx, might believe that drugs,
crime and poverty best describe it. Although these exist in the
Bronx, today they are not the main obstacles to overcome, at least
in my experience. A term I've learned at Crotona called
"cultural poverty" is probably the greatest obstacle that
youth face today. Rather than seek self-improvement, which is
sometimes accompanied by hardship, many people I see seek comfort
and the easy way out of everything, trying to avoid all discomfort,
pain and hard work. A selfish approach to life like this prevents a
person from experiencing true happiness. A person who lives like
this will have difficulty overcoming their fear and finding a
purpose for their life and therefore end up in a miserable, sad
condition. Furthermore, these poor people have difficulty in seeing
the good of things because their vision is clouded by skepticism and
pessimism, which hinders them from pursuing their deep down
aspirations. Now that I have a good sense of what many people really
need, I want to help them experience the joy of living for others,
which reveals the good in people and leads to an outlook on life
that is positive, liberating and still realistic at the same time.
I'm all the more excited about my future because of how I'm using
what I've learned about being myself and the struggle involved to
become a leader. I'm grateful to Crotona for preparing me to rise up
to the challenges of life as a real man that others can lean on. I
want to thank all of you for listening to me tonight and for your
generous support, which has helped Crotona to help me. Please
continue so that my little brother and hundreds of Bronx youth may
have the same benefits. Thank you.
(John
gave these remarks, as a St. Raymond's senior, at SBEF's 2001
Benefit Dinner. Today he is a linguist in the Marine Corps.)
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