Thank You Howard, Thank You Hoxie, Thank You Irish Hill, Thank You Belvedere, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

I cannot tell you how proud of each and every one of you I am.

YOU ARE the change I want to see in our world.
You met, laughed with, worked for, and helped OUR NEW FRIENDS.

For the rest of your life, when people talk of poverty, you will know so much more --you have seen the face of poverty.

And you know that although there is a poverty of money, a poverty of housing, and a poverty of food, that in most cases there is not a poverty of spirit, there is not a poverty of hope, there is not a poverty of kindness. And if we work hard to share our spirit, our hope, and our kindness, the POVERTY we see today can END.

Hard work usually pays off, and when it doesn't the obstacles we encounter enrich our character and allow us to grow.

In your seventeenth or eighteenth year (or 48th, 36th, or 55th) you achieved greatness, even if it was just one week.

For the rest of your life, when you have doubt or uncertainty remember this week or remember that a tall man with an unbelievable sense of humor believes in YOU (and so do 22 other adults).

Harry Chapin, the songwriter, shared this anecdote about his grandfather.

"My grandfather was a painter. He died at age eighty-eight, he illustrated Robert Frost's first two books of poetry and he was looking at me and he said, 'Harry, there are two kinds of tired: there's good-tired, and there's bad-tired.' He said, 'Ironically enough, bad-tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other peoples agendas, other people's dreams and when it was all over there was very little "you" in there, and when you hit the hay at night, somehow you toss and turn--you don't settle easy.' He said, 'Good-tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you don't have to tell yourself, 'cause you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days, and when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy--you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say "take me away."' He said, 'Harry, all my life I've painted. God, I would've loved to be more successful, but I painted and I painted, and I am good-tired and they can take me away.'

Last night, Saturday, I expect that you all had one of the best night's of sleep in your life. There was a lot of You in this week.


Thanks