Football, Music, Maps, and Justice

A former wide receiver for the Northwestern Wildcats, “Cabrini Connections” Tutor/Mentor Program Coordinator EL D’asheon Nix maintains a blog that documents the daily challenges faced by a non-school tutor/mentor program for at-risk youth. EL often cites parallels between the year-round training, performing, and measuring cycle of a football team, and that of a mentoring program. He writes in his “Cabriniblog” this week,

“This summer we have been reaching out to all of our returning players (students and their parents) and our returning coaches (volunteers) [to take] part in individual workouts over the summer … We are hoping that each and every player and coach on the team [is] ready to hit the ground running before the official team meetings (orientations) … and the opening season kickoff on Wednesday September 15th.”

A similar process is happening right now in dozens, if not hundreds of non-profit programs all over the city. Despite their efforts however, drop-out rates and youth violence continue to grow. Tutor/Mentor Connection (a related non-profit that specializes in building maps and strategies that facilitate this process of building tutor/mentor “teams”) maintains that more volunteer “coaches” are needed to recruit and train new student and parent “players” in new program “teams” everywhere, to attack these social woes at their core.



Against this backdrop, Tutor/Mentor Connection is calling community leaders and concerned citizens to join them at Tutor/Mentor Jam 2010 on August 29, 2010, at Darkroom in Chicago's West Town Neighborhood. This annual August/September volunteer recruitment event aims to mobilize volunteers and donors to be take action and be a part of tutor/mentor “teams.”

I will be performing with my band and plugging my maps and efforts from the stage, and I'm excited to announce that the indie hip hop coalition, The Black Temple 21, joined the bill last week, and this week, another former Wildcat football player joined our team. Come see former Northwestern Wildcat quarterback Alexander Webb perform a set of his acoustic blend of classic motown and modern rock at the event.

* More details at http://www.tutormentorjam.org/
* Darkroom, 2210 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622; 773-276-1411;
* 21+, Sunday, August 29, 2010; 5pm doors; Show at 6pm.
* FREE FOOD from ManBQue (cash bar);

TICKETS - HURRY! $10 until August 10th. After, going up to $15 through August 29th. $20 at the door; Purchase at http://www.tutormentorjam.org/

?!?! Can't make it?
Every donation helps our effort! http://www.giveforward.org/tmjam2010/