I woke up on this sunny and warmer-than-usual Monday morning in the mood to write a feel-good post. Maybe something about ordinary citizens who decided to TakePart and take action in support of public schools.

It just so happens that I found two such stories to satisfy my craving for a healthy dose of inspiration.

On Saturday, a special day-long event took place in New York City.
Thanks to the non-profit organization New York Cares,  a whopping 8,000 volunteers from sororities, alumni associations, corporations, and community groups were mobilized in a joint effort to beautify 117 city schools. Some of their completed projects include: painting classrooms and hallways, adding murals to school walls, and planting flowers in school gardens.

This year marked the 18th anniversary of New York Cares Day which was originally conceived when budget cuts forced schools to cancel school improvement projects they could no longer afford. Given the state of our current economy, not to mention Governor Paterson’s proposed $223 million cuts to education, this event couldn’t have come at a better time.

In addition to all the work completed on Saturday, the day of service was also New York Cares’ biggest annual fundraiser. Money was raised to support the work New York Cares does in schools all year long including its annual coat drive, computer classes, adult and children’s literacy programs, and SAT preparation classes. (To learn more, click here.)

My second story is about one man in Atlanta who recently decided to make a major career change. Tom Dunn, an attorney who led a nonprofit law firm specializing in the defense of clients on death row, was forced to leave his stressful profession last summer due to health reasons. Instead of taking some well-deserved time off and then looking for a cushy new job, Dunn joined the Atlanta training program of Teach for America, focused on special education, and applied for a job at a school where he thought he could do the most good: the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School where 97 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Even the principal, Danielle S. Battle, was shocked by his choice. In her words:

A lot of people will say, “I’ll do anything but middle school.”

But Dunn knew exactly what he was doing. After spending decades listening to the life stories of inmates on death row, he recognized common themes that ran through almost all of them: the lack of support and guidance from any caring authority figure, like a teacher, who could have helped them stay on track. And most of the inmates he talked to also had learning disabilities.

So Tom Dunn currently works in classrooms where special education students are being mainstreamed, and finds himself living by the words of Frederick Douglass, who said:

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

(Photo: Rubenstein’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)