Dear Michael Roth,
I am writing to you because as the President of Wesleyan University, you have the power to change a child’s life for future generations.
Last Friday night, I watched a 5th grader give a presentation about her experience in the Young Women's Leadership Institute during Green Street Arts Center’s Festival for the Senses. She participated in the YWLI last summer and was helping to raise funds in order to keep Green Street going. Enough money was raised to help her, but I kept wondering about all the other young girls who weren’t there. What about those young women who won’t have a generous individual fund their experience? Will they spend their summer being bored? Will that boredom lead to good choices? Will those choices make them victims of circumstance?
More questions came to me as I drove home and my daughter chattered about how much she loves to draw and color and paint. Our family can afford to provide art supplies, but I know many others who can’t. Then it came to me: Green Street could. I wondered why Green Street was in jeopardy because it is limited to piece-meal donations? What could Green Street do if it had funding and could invest its energy into developing more arts programs for Middletown’s youth? How many more children would benefit?
I ask these questions because I am the beneficiary of a university’s largess. My mother, Janice Albert, received a scholarship to the University of Chicago in 1953 as part of a program to help young women from rural areas better their future with a college education. She moved from Denver to Chicago on this scholarship and received a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Humanities. After a long teaching career she moved to Middletown when her granddaughter was born in 2004. Mom became involved in Green Street, volunteering at the front desk, fundraising, taking beading classes and bringing my daughter to music classes for two years. This is the same girl who loves the arts now because her Nana introduced them to her then. I can trace the direct relationship between the scholarship my Mother received many years ago and the quality of my daughter’s life today.
I became involved in Green Street after my Mother passed away, a little less than one year ago. Although I could not fill her shoes, my admiration for the organization has blossomed from my desire to honor her memory. The staff at Green Street have welcomed me and my ideas, and it is a testament to my Mother’s emphasis on arts education that my daughter feels a part of Green Street today. Just as my daughter’s experience is connected to that University scholarship over 50 years ago, I think about the exponential effect funding from Wesleyan could help Green Street have on future generations.
With just four words, young girls in Middletown, their parents, teachers and families will be able to know what they will do this summer.
The girls will spend the summer learning about science and math.
The girls will spend the summer practicing leadership.
The girls will spend the summer developing self esteem.
The girls will spend the summer experiencing what it is like to belong to the Green Street family.
With four words from you, Green Street could provide leadership, arts and science education for free to underprivileged, at-risk youth. Four words could bring to these girls the light of creativity, industriousness, and empowerment.
The decision to declare publicly, “I support Green Street” by funding it fully for a five year period, using less than one percent of the University’s budget, would send a message to the community, alumni, parents of Wesleyan students and the national arts community that you are willing to use your power to make sure Green Street is around 10, 20, maybe even 50 years from now. It would also tell the youth of Middletown that the President of Wesleyan is their hero.
As a parent, community member, and donor to Green Street, I plead with you to publicly use the most powerful words you could ever utter:
I support Green Street
Some say, “To teach is to touch a life forever.”
I say, “To fund is to touch many lives forever.”
What do you say?
Amy Albert
Amy, thank you. I say, "Amen!"
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