Learn More About My Maps & How They Can Help You!

Here's a recent article about why at-risk city youth are your problem whether you live in the city or not.

And don't miss Dan Bassill's articles this week about how tutor/mentor programs (or lack of programs) might relate to teen violence and shootings. And another about how YOU can respond and help us work toward stopping the violence.

What does all this have to do with the maps I make for Tutor/Mentor Connection?

Stop by the May Tutor/Mentor Conference next Thursday afternoon, May 27th, 2010 at Loyola University to attend my workshop and learn more about our mapping technologies... technologies and data available to anyone who wants to help draw attention and resources to tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods where students need a little more help to prepare for fruitful careers, versus the streets.

I will also show how local programs, youth groups, students in service-learning classes, journalists with local media, and YOU can create your own maps using our free online program locator. Come with one or two addresses that you would like to map, and you'll leave knowing how anyone can create a blog article and map for justice.

Sign up today. Request a scholarship if you need financial assistance.

If you can't make it, but money is not the issue, please consider a donation to help maintain this biannual forum and gathering of business, government, media, and community leaders... Help us continue to develop new strategies and technologies, in the name of long-term solutions to our shared social, economic, and workforce ills.

Our Maps Make The World A Better Place - Get Involved!

Hey! A review of our mapping work from VerySpatial.Com...

"a great interactive website...geospatial technologies are being used to make the world a better place and encourages people to make their own impact on society."

(This map shows the locations of 10 shootings that occurred in three separate high-poverty neighborhoods in the 24 hours between April 1st and 2nd, 2010. The darker shades of red and blue show the highest poverty rates. The green stars show known mixes tutor/mentor programs, in the Tutor/Mentor Connection's database. This map was featured in a Mapping For Justice article on April 2nd.)

I smell a press kit coming!

Seriously.

We need more press, more buzz, and more investment... to continue providing innovative tools to those who are building mentoring capacity in areas where our maps indicate there are probably a lot of young, impressionable, at-risk youth.

We need to continue providing extra scholastic and decision making skills for kids on the fence in these high-poverty enclaves... kids who have untapped talent and might just choose to side-step the lure of the streets in their teen years, and focus instead on becoming fruitful members of our society and economy... rather than drains on your tax dollars, our economy, and our collective future as Americans.

More press. More buzz. More investment.

This means YOU doing what you can, to help kids you might not think of as your problem...

But you don't like crime. Just click on that map to the left to expand it and see all the crime in Chicago, early this year.

You don't like the undereducated...

• The Alliance for Excellent Education estimated that high school dropouts from the Class of 2006-07 will cost the U.S. more than $329 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes."

And I'm betting you don't like that word taxes...

• “Cost of poverty” reports estimate the costs to the U.S. associated with childhood poverty at $500B per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of GDP.

Help us create this buzz and find the investment needed to connect our not-for-profit maps with policy makers who understand that tutoring/mentoring is part of an urgent long-term and comprehensive response to the economic and social burdens we're all facing (versus another high-priced band-aid policy that will have no real long-term effect... like calling in the National Guard, for instance).

I won't lie to you. It took a $50,000 donation in 2007 to help us rebuild our map capacity and get to where we are now. That money is gone and we're depending on general donations until we find new sponsors and benefactors to help us get to the next level.

If you have contacts in your network, or a philanthropic budget yourself, you can help us connect our tools to the mainstream today, toward a much brighter tomorrow.

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Attend our workshops at the May 27 and 28 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference to meet others who are already invested.

T/M Conference May 27-28: Come See Me Present My Maps!

It's that time of year again... At the end of this month, Tutor/Mentor Connection will host its first of two annual conferences at Loyola University's Rogers Park campus.

The conferences bring tutor/mentor professionals together with members of the media, and political/faith/business/community leaders (like you!) who wish to share ideas and explore tutoring/mentoring as a part of any comprehensive attack on poverty, crime, inadequate education for our youth, and the associated tax burdens that eventually fall in all our laps.

Come join us May 27 and 28 at the May Tutor/Mentor Conference! In fact...

On Thursday May 27th, 2010, I will host a workshop, explaining how maps like to one at the left can help draw attention and resources to tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods where more are needed. I will also show how local programs, youth groups, students in service-learning classes, journalists with local media, and you can create your own maps using our program locator. Come with one or two addresses that you would like to map, and you'll leave knowing how anyone can create a blog article and map for justice.

If you cannot join us, please consider helping us raise scholarships for students and other future leaders who cannot afford the admission.