Took students to New York every January. Veteran journalist Harry Smith hosted us several times at 30Rock. Smith’s cerebral, honest, but always sent Chapman gaggle home with hope. “Sometime in your career, I promise you, that door will open,” Smith said, “maybe just a crack. Be ready. Go through. ’Cause it will open.”
Smith was talking about opportunity. I discovered two sublime examples this week—similar in name, age and mission.
Orangewood Foundation in Santa Ana began as Orangewood Children’s Home, inspiration of Gen. William Lyon and Bill Steiner – emergency shelter for foster kids, privately funded. It expanded services, and in 2010 set out to expand opportunity as its foster kids became teenagers.
“Only 2% of foster children graduate college,” foundation CEO Chris Simonsen told me. With lead underwriters Susan and Henry Samueli, the Samueli Academy Charter High School opened on Fairview Road in Santa Ana in 2013.
No paper. No books. Freshmen get a Chrome, use the cloud. Tech and soft skills. “By the time they graduate,” Simonsen said, “70 to 80 public presentations. Dressed up.” Academy has grown to 520 students—70% foster children or low-income … from the neighborhood. The charter school’s charter class: 97% onto college—USC, UC-Berkeley, two to Carnegie Mellon. Opportunity.
Took 28 years, but I discovered The Wooden Floor. Began as St. Joseph Ballet in 1983. Godmother was Sister Beth Burns, St. Joseph of Orange. Burns’ belief—dance improves lives of at-risk kids, and leads to opportunity.
The St. Joseph Ballet morphed into The Wooden Floor and much more. At its annual Step Beyond Breakfast at Westin South Coast Plaza last Thursday, the now-elite dance nonprofit feted the HS grads in its class of 2018. 28-for-28.
I sat next to alum Itzel Guerrero of Orange. Wooden Floor provided a scholarship for her—Sage Hill School in Newport. “All the opportunities I’ve gotten,” Guerrero said, “Sage Hill. That’s where I got my passion for civil engineering. We took a trip to build homes in Costa Rica.”
She graduates UC-Irvine in June… Civil engineering. Starts work at LA Dept. of Public Works in Aug. Design division.
Met neat people at breakfast, board member Judy Posnikoff, co-founder of PAAMCO. Keynote Gisele Bonitz. Fled Nicaragua at 14. Works in cognitive analytics (AI) at Intel—after 28 years in the Navy, retiring as a captain. Her message to grads: “Be memorable. Opportunities are available to you.”
They are. Door’s been cracked.
