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February 11, 2008
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Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection event highlights choices and consequences for youth embarking on their own
Rochester, NY-February 11,
2008-
Hillside
Work-Scholarship Connection, in collaboration with the Rochester Center for
Community Leadership at the University of Rochester, presents a free talk by
nationally-recognized speaker Kemba Smith about choices and their consequences
facing today’s youth this Wednesday, February 13 at 6:00
p.m. in the Aenon Missionary Baptist Church at 175 Genesee Street
in Rochester.
Single mother, advocate, inspirational speaker, and law student Kemba Smith will share the story of her traumatic real-life experience in hopes of engaging today’s students and helping them recognize that there are consequences to the choices they make in their lives
As Kemba Smith travels throughout the country for speaking engagements, she looks into her audiences and sees herself in the young people sitting before her. She sees the hopes and dreams of youth in their eyes, but she knows that the choices these young people make as they head off to college and prepare to leave home for the first time will have a great impact on the realization of those hopes and dreams.
Kemba Smith's experiences, from growing up as an only child in an advantaged and sheltered home, to her involvement with an abusive boyfriend who was part of a major crack cocaine ring, to spending time in a federal prison on drug-related charges, to receiving a presidential pardon, intertwine to create a powerful and compelling story that is of interest to any youth on the brink of independence.
By telling the story of her traumatic real-life experiences about venturing out on her own to college, Kemba Smith hopes to engage the youth in her audiences that are in the same situation she was in, and help them to recognize that there are consequences to the choices they make in their lives.
About
Hillside Work-Scholarship
Connection
Hillside
Work-Scholarship Connection, founded in 1987 by Robert and Danny Wegman, is an
affiliate of Hillside Family of Agencies. Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection
helps urban youth stay in high school by providing academic support, part-time
employment experience, and professional mentors (youth advocates) who help their
students to develop good habits, achieve academic success, and become
responsible young people at home, at work, and in their community.
Hillside Family of Agencies (www.hillside.com) is a family and children services organization that provides child welfare, mental health, youth development, juvenile justice, special education, and developmental disabilities services across central and western New York. Hillside Family of Agencies is comprised of affiliates Crestwood Children's Center, Crestwood Children's Foundation, Hillside Children's Center, Hillside Children's Foundation, Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection, and Snell Farm Children's Center.
About the
Rochester
Center for Community Leadership
The
Rochester Center for Community Leadership was established in January 2005 as
part of the College Dean of Students Office. Its purpose is to develop,
coordinate, and promote a variety of programs to connect college students to
their community and to encourage them to become engaged citizens and leaders
during their college years and in the future. Our distinctive College curriculum
emphasizes student responsibility for their education; its values of freedom,
responsibility, and community make community engagement an essential part of
student learning. We have developed a unique model of community leadership that
supports the interest driven nature of the College curriculum, one that is based
on research on student and community development theory, as well as leadership
theory. At Rochester we encourage our students to learn what they love and to
give where they live.
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