September 6, 2010

• People Who Inspire Me #2

  Even though the first installment was never really read, I will do a second. Here are a few more strong and inspiring women who I would like to be like when I grow up. Today it is movie worthy People. =)

  

  Erin Gruwell – An amazing teacher from Long Beach who, along with her students, were the basis of the movie Freedom Writers. She took a group of students during terrible times in So Cal and unified them despite racial barriers. She took kids destined to drop out of school and die in gang violence and helped them become for some, the first in their families to graduate high school. She founded the Freedom Writers Foundation whose purpose it to: 1. Create opportunities for students to reach their full academic potential and aspire to higher education. 2. Publicly and systematically promote an educational philosophy that values, upholds, and honors diversity. 3. Inspire students to realize their roles as vital members of their communities. She works to make a difference in places where it is really needed. Yup I would like to be like that when I grow up!

   

  

  Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras – Another teacher who tried her best to make a difference. The inspiration for the movie Music of the Heart. After a shocking and heartbreaking divorce she moved to New York with her two sons and started her life over. A violin teacher working in East Harlem, fighting to keep music programs alive after budget cuts. “Music is as important as learning to read and write. It exercises their brains. There’s this wonderful feeling of pride and empowerment.” She organized a fund-raising program called Opus 118 to keep the music programs alive. She teaches in three schools, all the funding and her own salary coming from the donations made to Opus 118. There are so many kids eager to get into her music classes that she has to hold a lottery to see who gets in. Art and music is so important for kids. I hate it that those are the first programs cut from schools. Roberta definitely inspires me, I’d like to be like that when I grow up.

  

  Erin Brockovich – Who doesn’t know the story or the movie starring Julia Roberts? A single mother, unemployed and with no formal law school education, she was instrumental in creating a case against PG&E for polluting the water and people of the small southern California town of Hinkley. The case was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in US history. By working to take down PG&E and stop the pollution she saved many lives, and helped make the lives of those poisoned, suffering cancer, and many other terrible things a little bit easier. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting, a consulting firm. She is currently working as a consultant for Girardi & Keese on the east coast, the New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg,  which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure, and Shine Lawyers in Australia. She did, and does great work that I find inspiring. Yet another person I would like to be like “when I grow up”.

   

  All of these women did something in their lives to make a difference. That is something I have always wanted to do. Helping others is not something you do for self gratification or pride, you do it for those you help, to make a difference. I plan to look into volunteering here in town, even a little bit of work, and even in you are one of the masses, you can make a difference. You might even end up like one of these determined women who, by standing by what they believe in and working their butts off, did something great.

  People Who Inspire Me #1

   

  Links:

  Gruwell

  Roberta

  Erin

  
  

  • 8:23 PM
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