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Shaka Rawls took over as principal of Leo Catholic High School, a 90-year-old all-boys school on the city’ s Far South Side, in August and immediately started making plans for a volunteer cleanup day.“ We’ ve probably got 20-year-old dust in the school,” he said. By the time the day arrived, Rawls had 150 volunteers from corporations and organizations around Chicago, plus money and cleaning products donated from Method, the Chicago Blackhawks and Nuance Solutions.“ Everyone is invested in the success of these young men,” he told me after the event.“ They feel believed in.”
Caroline Boudreaux took a soul-searching trip around the globe and ended up leaving her corporate gig to launch a nonprofit that funds orphanages in India.“ The ramifications of not having your parents are so vast,” she said.“ If you don’ t have that basic thing, this world is just going to eat you up.” The Miracle Foundation provides room and board for Indian women to serve as housemothers and provides food, clean water, health care and scholarships for the orphans.“ If you take care of a mom,” Boudreaux told me,“ you really do take care of the children.”
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Skyler Shrempp is the artistic director at the Viola Project, a nonprofit that brings together girls ages 10-16 and immerses them in Shakespeare as a way of teaching them to find and use their own voices.“ We work with girls at a time of their lives when they stop advocating for themselves,” Shrempp said. As 13-year-old Sophie Harris told me the day I observed a class,“ It’ s kind of saying,‘ In your face, Shakespeare’ because his plays were originally for all boys.”
Audrey Peterman is on a mission to make the nation’ s public lands accessible— and accessed by— more people of colour. She and her husband, Frank, wrote“ Legacy on the Land: A Black Couple Discovers Our National Inheritance and Tells Why Every American Should Care”( Earthwise Productions), and they tour the country speaking about their travels.“ We can’ t save the world,” she told me.“ The world saves us.”
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Eric Witherspoon hopped on the morning announcements at Evanston Township High School the morning after Donald Trump was elected and read a message that became a nationwide balm.“ You attend a school where we not only respect differences, we embrace our diversity,” he told the 3,300-student school, where he serves as superintendent. His several-minute address was emailed and texted to schools and parents around the country.“ This transcends politics,” he told me.“ All of us, as Americans, know that’ s who we really are, and it’ s so important that we don’ t lose sight of it.”
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