New Horizons for Learning: Giraffe Project, Summer 2002

What's a giraffe?

giraffe icon GIRAFFE IN THIS ISSUE

Making a Difference
Faye and Frank Clarke of Long Beach

Faye and Frank Clarke have done well in their lives. Both started life in single-parent households and both went on to attend good colleges and succeed in business, gaining the status and income that come with such success. And since the Clarkes retired, they're doing even better.

Appalled that so many poor kids today are not being educated as well as they were decades ago, the Clarkes put their retirement money and all their time and ingenuity to work on making changes in that appalling picture. Their Educate the Children Foundation helps kids in poor and rural schools get up to speed on technology by providing computers, software, books, furniture and supplies.

Educate The Children has distributed more than $20 million worth of educational materials and supplies in the past decade to schools in low-income neighborhoods and on Indian reservations.

"It started with a very modest effort," Faye reports. "It grew as we became more and more aware of the needs."

To accomplish their mission, they've enlisted the support of large corporate donors, worked with Gifts-in-Kind International and trucking companies to deliver donations to the schools without charge.

The Clarkes are using all their business savvy and contacts and their considerable charisma to make all this happen. Before retiring, Faye was an executive with a major food service company, and Frank came up through the competitive world of advertising, radio and TV.

The couple's innovative thinking shows in their creation of an after-school computer program and a summer computer camp, and in their distribution of 20,000 copies of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream—in comic book form.

The Clarkes spend long hours drumming up support, organizing shipments and seeking out schools in need—not the "normal" day of successful retirees. But Faye and Frank Clarke will tell you that helping new generations have the opportunities they had themselves is far more interesting than a so-called normal retirement.

We asked the folks at the Giraffe Project to let us share some of the wonderful stories of personal transformation and public service here at New Horizons for Learning. The people at the Giraffe Project believe in being "free flacks for heroes -- finding, commending and publicizing people who stick their necks out for the common good." Their mission is to get others to look up, notice, and appreciate the quiet leaders in our communities.

Visit the Giraffe website to learn about The Giraffe Program, a K-12 curriculum that teaches kids about real heroes and gets them going on lives of courage, caring and responsibility, and the Giraffe Partners Trunk--everything a business or club needs to help a classroom full of kids to stand tall.

Posted with permission by New Horizons for Learning

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