I am going to do something a little different today. Instead of writing my opinion on this subject, I will state some facts based on my research. Hopefully, it will help somone out there reading this entry. Enjoy and God Bless:
Americans' decisions about how to invest their money are as different as black and white. So says a new survey of African-American and non-African-American investors released exclusively to MONEY; it was commissioned by Chicago-based Ariel Mutual Funds and conducted by pollster Roper Starch Worldwide. The most intriguing finding in this first-of-a-kind nationwide mail survey is this: Black investors are often less willing than whites to take the risks necessary to achieve high returns from their portfolios.
The highlights:
African Americans aim for higher returns than whites on average, but their investment choices fall short. Blacks said they seek an average 14.7% annual return, more than three points higher than the 11.2% anticipated by non-African Americans. But African Americans are less likely than whites to have investments like stocks and stock mutual funds that are most likely to achieve such returns. "African Americans are often inhibited from plunging into the stock market because many of our parents and grandparents were not involved in investing.
Women are much more likely to call the financial shots in black households. Women are the primary financial decisionmakers for 21% of African-American married couples, while wives play that role for just 10% of white couples. "Particularly in African-American families, middle-class status is maintained with both paychecks," says Brooke Stephens, author of Talking Dollars and Making Sense: A Wealth Building Guide for African Americans (McGraw-Hill, $14.95). "Women are more involved because we've had to work just as hard for it."
African Americans are more likely than whites to rely on financial advisers and less likely to listen to friends or family members. "Since many blacks are first- or second-generation investors at best, there is no pattern of behavior to follow, so they often feel more secure relying on professional help," says financial consultant Daron Fullwood in Greenbelt, Md., who has a large number of African-American clients. That may explain why a full 54% of blacks surveyed said that they would rely on a financial adviser or planner when making savings and investment decisions (vs. 46% of whites). By contrast, 31% are inclined to ask friends or family for money advice, compared with 39% of whites.
Based on the poll results, experts we've interviewed offer these three tips to help African Americans increase their wealth--their median net worth ($4,418) remains a mere fraction of whites' ($45,740)--and approach the high returns they anticipate:
Boost your ownership in stocks and stock funds. Start by investing through your employer's professionally managed 401(k) or 403(b) retirement savings plan. If you want to buy individual stocks, consider joining or starting a local investment club.
If you want to hire a financial planner, choose one who understands your needs and financial temperament. For referrals, call a trade group like the International Association for Financial Planning (800-945-4237) or the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (800-366-2732). Interview at least three certified financial planners, and be clear about your primary goal.
Even if ethical investing and seeking stocks with integrated management are important to you, don't lose sight of profit performance. According to the survey, blacks are twice as likely to favor socially responsible investments as whites. And 51% of blacks say the diversity of a company's management is very important when they invest; only 10% of whites feel this way. Socially conscious mutual funds tend to underperform their peers, though comparisons are difficult since many of these funds are new.
The top performer, Domini Social Equity Fund (800-762-6814), returned an admirable 17.95% a year on average over the past three years. But remember: If you're going for 14% returns, you're better off scrutinizing a company's earning potential and its strategic plan than, say, its diversity. A company's work force might be black, brown and white.
But the only color that pays is green.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
What Is The Race Card ?
The majority of people of African descent, living in America, do not have the luxury of compartmentalizing our collective experience here in America, beginning with forced immigration, enslavement, the Black Codes, Jim Crow, and after slavery, in modern times, the long list of inequalities and abuses that have been brought down upon our heads as a result of who we are and our past relationship to those in stewardship, of non African descent, in America, when we express our feelings, beliefs and concerns over our past and for our as yet to be known futures in America.
Many Americans find it difficult and it makes them uneasy to hear a perspective that does not reflect the experiences of their own. It's difficult to understand another's perspective if one can't hear the speaker because one doesn't like what the speaker is saying.
Race, in America, has remained a divisive force among many Americans, not because America's citizens of African descent speak of it; because the society has never reconciled itself to the reality that for centuries, those of African descent lived in a world so different, with many continuing to do so, it would seemingly require, literally, a physical transformation and, as that saying attributed to caretakers of the land before the establishment of European colonies here, the ability to 'walk in another's moccasins'.
Numerous studies and reports, regarding societal development along separate paths in the United States, including the report from the Kerner Commission, commissioned by President Lyndon B. Johnson, have been conducted over the past few decades that indicate all that has transpired in America, since its inception, has shaped the psyches and consciences of all in America, Black and White, resulting in divergent view points on many things due to our life experiences.
The African slave trade and the system of chattel slavery became major sources of wealth for Europe. Estimates of the number of Africans taken from the continent during the nearly five hundred year period, including the East Coast Slave Trade, carried on by the Arabs of the Middle East, reaches beyond 30 million, taking into account all the European nations involved in the transport of Africans.
As Europe emerged out of the times known as the Dark Ages and as it recovered from the loss of life during the plague that came to be known as the Black Death, the wealth generated from the transport of Africans and their enslavement allowed Europe to continue to rebuild, seeking new, previously unexplored territories outside of Europe.
All who partook of the wealth generated during the slave trade received a leg up, economically, at the expense of lowering an entire continent of people to the status of less than human for those purposes.
I hear and read, nearly on a nonstop basis, the admonition to just 'get over slavery'. Our lives here right now are representative of our ancestors somehow grabbing hold to their belief in a Creator and against so many odds, including choosing not to take their own lives out of heartbreak and despair, who lived to continue, despite their hardships and struggles, in spite of slavery, so that each generation reaped the benefit of the succeeding generations' struggles, propelling us forward until we've arrived here.
One of the silliest notions that exists, whenever anyone of African descent speaks of historical matters that occurred due to America's history and how it viewed race, is that the speaker is playing the 'race' card.
For most within the African American community, the 'race' card is not some trump card that helps you 'win' any discussion or debate. Virtually every time, whenever race is mentioned by an African American, nearly every discussion veers off course, with the speaker being called out for expressing a belief based on their life experience.
This is not a unique set of circumstances or occurrences to be spoken of in our community. Is speaking of these incidents somehow playing the 'race' card? I'm sure many would most likely say it is.
In reality, that imaginary 'race' card? It's more like the Old Maid card in the children's card game of that same name because, if you're an African American, when you get stuck with that card in your hand at the end of the game, you lose.
Many Americans find it difficult and it makes them uneasy to hear a perspective that does not reflect the experiences of their own. It's difficult to understand another's perspective if one can't hear the speaker because one doesn't like what the speaker is saying.
Race, in America, has remained a divisive force among many Americans, not because America's citizens of African descent speak of it; because the society has never reconciled itself to the reality that for centuries, those of African descent lived in a world so different, with many continuing to do so, it would seemingly require, literally, a physical transformation and, as that saying attributed to caretakers of the land before the establishment of European colonies here, the ability to 'walk in another's moccasins'.
Numerous studies and reports, regarding societal development along separate paths in the United States, including the report from the Kerner Commission, commissioned by President Lyndon B. Johnson, have been conducted over the past few decades that indicate all that has transpired in America, since its inception, has shaped the psyches and consciences of all in America, Black and White, resulting in divergent view points on many things due to our life experiences.
The African slave trade and the system of chattel slavery became major sources of wealth for Europe. Estimates of the number of Africans taken from the continent during the nearly five hundred year period, including the East Coast Slave Trade, carried on by the Arabs of the Middle East, reaches beyond 30 million, taking into account all the European nations involved in the transport of Africans.
As Europe emerged out of the times known as the Dark Ages and as it recovered from the loss of life during the plague that came to be known as the Black Death, the wealth generated from the transport of Africans and their enslavement allowed Europe to continue to rebuild, seeking new, previously unexplored territories outside of Europe.
All who partook of the wealth generated during the slave trade received a leg up, economically, at the expense of lowering an entire continent of people to the status of less than human for those purposes.
I hear and read, nearly on a nonstop basis, the admonition to just 'get over slavery'. Our lives here right now are representative of our ancestors somehow grabbing hold to their belief in a Creator and against so many odds, including choosing not to take their own lives out of heartbreak and despair, who lived to continue, despite their hardships and struggles, in spite of slavery, so that each generation reaped the benefit of the succeeding generations' struggles, propelling us forward until we've arrived here.
One of the silliest notions that exists, whenever anyone of African descent speaks of historical matters that occurred due to America's history and how it viewed race, is that the speaker is playing the 'race' card.
For most within the African American community, the 'race' card is not some trump card that helps you 'win' any discussion or debate. Virtually every time, whenever race is mentioned by an African American, nearly every discussion veers off course, with the speaker being called out for expressing a belief based on their life experience.
This is not a unique set of circumstances or occurrences to be spoken of in our community. Is speaking of these incidents somehow playing the 'race' card? I'm sure many would most likely say it is.
In reality, that imaginary 'race' card? It's more like the Old Maid card in the children's card game of that same name because, if you're an African American, when you get stuck with that card in your hand at the end of the game, you lose.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I Paid $3.94 A Gallon And Think I Am Pissed
Embrace the memory of the average $3.21 cents we paid for each gallon of regular unleaded gasoline purchased Memorial Holiday weekend in 2007. The chances are we'll pay a lot more this year and the years after that.
Abandon your conspiracy theories, your worries that global oil companies are gouging us at the pump. For the record, they are. It's the kind of profiteering that accompanies any crisis -- war and rumors of war, hurricanes, or other actual or imminent disasters.
What the oil companies are doing isn't moral. Nor is it illegal. But it is business.
Crises usually are profitable for people positioned to exploit them; and they usually are costly for those who aren't. When it comes to oil and the motor fuels it provides, we're in a crisis. We've been in a crisis for nearly 30 years now.
But the only times we've paid attention to it were during those rare, for us, seasons of gasoline shortages, such as the spot shortages that occurred in the United States in the early 1970s. What we now regard as high gasoline prices -- laughable in the rest of the developed world -- have also gotten our attention.
We're upset. Life is unfair. Someone has taken away our cheap gasoline. It just isn't right.
Damn those oil companies and their lackeys in the automotive industry, especially in Detroit, who busily are churning out gas-guzzling trucks when everybody knows that all we've ever wanted in the United States were fuel-sipping sedans such as the gas-electric Toyota Prius. Never mind that Toyota got the money for the Prius through highly profitable sales of models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Sequoia and FJ Cruiser sport-utility vehicles. Never mind that Toyota, hungry for the dollars that Detroit has been raking in on sales of big pickup trucks, is going after that particular cash pile with its new, super-powerful, quite fuel-thirsty Toyota Tundra CrewMax pickup truck.
Fie on those Detroit companies! They have no interest in producing fuel-efficient vehicles. Never mind that they've been doing exactly that for decades in other parts of the world where gasoline isn't dirt cheap. Never mind that they tried on numerous occasions to do the same thing in the bigger-is-always-better United States, much to their fiscal distress.
And on that point, never mind that any American who wanted a car that could get at least 30 miles per gallon could have done so, most certainly, in the last two decades. But year after year, according to U.S. automotive sales histories, those cars lingered at the very bottom of the market regardless of whether they came from Japan, the United States or Europe.
But I digress. I was writing about the crisis. It is this: Despite all of the happy talk you hear from lawmakers who have fooled themselves into believing that the next big exploitable oil reserve is bubbling just beneath the surface of our national will to pump it from the ground or the sea, despite profound media hand-wringing over the putative sins of the oil industry or their cronies in the car business, despite the inane congressional tendency to try to avert an energy crisis by making the car companies produce more fuel-efficient vehicles while asking consumers to do nothing except sit and wait for gasoline prices to come down, world oil production cannot match the trajectory of demand.
No magic turn of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil wheel is going to alleviate that problem over the long term. No amount of U.S. military boots on the ground of someone else's oil-producing country is going to ultimately alter the inevitable outcome of rapid global consumption of a finite resource.
What is odd -- indeed what is scary -- is that there are so many Americans who don't get this, who don't believe it, who think that a quick fix is just around the corner. When you think about it, our mindset about oil is very much like that of a crack addict desperate for his or her next fix: "There must be some around here somewhere. I've got to have it. What must I do to get it? Whom must I kill? From whom must I steal?"
It's a useless pursuit.
We consume 20.8 million barrels of crude oil per day. But we daily produce only 5.2 million barrels of that amount within U.S. borders. We use 25 percent of the total oil and gasoline consumed in the world -- substantially more than any other country, including those that have no fuel economy rule. But we believe that fuel economy rules alone -- effectively shifting the burden of fuel conservation to the car companies while leaving the consumer side of the equation virtually untouched -- will solve our problem.
It's time to face up and fess up: We're high on cheap gasoline. Our current distemper is caused by the reality that in a world that loves the stuff as much as we do and that is beginning to use it with a profligacy that matches our own, we're going to have to pay much more to get it.
There is not an inexhaustible supply of oil. There is not now, nor has there ever been, and nor will there ever be an inexhaustible finite resource. Get over it. Let's start withdrawing now. Let's face, share, and manage the pain. Let's deal with our own greed either by using only what we need or paying more of the real price for using more than what is needed. Yeah, carbon and horsepower taxes, and congestion pricing to control the egregious fuel waste in urban rush-hour traffic jams.
When it comes to oil, it's not going to get much better than this.
Abandon your conspiracy theories, your worries that global oil companies are gouging us at the pump. For the record, they are. It's the kind of profiteering that accompanies any crisis -- war and rumors of war, hurricanes, or other actual or imminent disasters.
What the oil companies are doing isn't moral. Nor is it illegal. But it is business.
Crises usually are profitable for people positioned to exploit them; and they usually are costly for those who aren't. When it comes to oil and the motor fuels it provides, we're in a crisis. We've been in a crisis for nearly 30 years now.
But the only times we've paid attention to it were during those rare, for us, seasons of gasoline shortages, such as the spot shortages that occurred in the United States in the early 1970s. What we now regard as high gasoline prices -- laughable in the rest of the developed world -- have also gotten our attention.
We're upset. Life is unfair. Someone has taken away our cheap gasoline. It just isn't right.
Damn those oil companies and their lackeys in the automotive industry, especially in Detroit, who busily are churning out gas-guzzling trucks when everybody knows that all we've ever wanted in the United States were fuel-sipping sedans such as the gas-electric Toyota Prius. Never mind that Toyota got the money for the Prius through highly profitable sales of models such as the Toyota Land Cruiser, Toyota Sequoia and FJ Cruiser sport-utility vehicles. Never mind that Toyota, hungry for the dollars that Detroit has been raking in on sales of big pickup trucks, is going after that particular cash pile with its new, super-powerful, quite fuel-thirsty Toyota Tundra CrewMax pickup truck.
Fie on those Detroit companies! They have no interest in producing fuel-efficient vehicles. Never mind that they've been doing exactly that for decades in other parts of the world where gasoline isn't dirt cheap. Never mind that they tried on numerous occasions to do the same thing in the bigger-is-always-better United States, much to their fiscal distress.
And on that point, never mind that any American who wanted a car that could get at least 30 miles per gallon could have done so, most certainly, in the last two decades. But year after year, according to U.S. automotive sales histories, those cars lingered at the very bottom of the market regardless of whether they came from Japan, the United States or Europe.
But I digress. I was writing about the crisis. It is this: Despite all of the happy talk you hear from lawmakers who have fooled themselves into believing that the next big exploitable oil reserve is bubbling just beneath the surface of our national will to pump it from the ground or the sea, despite profound media hand-wringing over the putative sins of the oil industry or their cronies in the car business, despite the inane congressional tendency to try to avert an energy crisis by making the car companies produce more fuel-efficient vehicles while asking consumers to do nothing except sit and wait for gasoline prices to come down, world oil production cannot match the trajectory of demand.
No magic turn of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil wheel is going to alleviate that problem over the long term. No amount of U.S. military boots on the ground of someone else's oil-producing country is going to ultimately alter the inevitable outcome of rapid global consumption of a finite resource.
What is odd -- indeed what is scary -- is that there are so many Americans who don't get this, who don't believe it, who think that a quick fix is just around the corner. When you think about it, our mindset about oil is very much like that of a crack addict desperate for his or her next fix: "There must be some around here somewhere. I've got to have it. What must I do to get it? Whom must I kill? From whom must I steal?"
It's a useless pursuit.
We consume 20.8 million barrels of crude oil per day. But we daily produce only 5.2 million barrels of that amount within U.S. borders. We use 25 percent of the total oil and gasoline consumed in the world -- substantially more than any other country, including those that have no fuel economy rule. But we believe that fuel economy rules alone -- effectively shifting the burden of fuel conservation to the car companies while leaving the consumer side of the equation virtually untouched -- will solve our problem.
It's time to face up and fess up: We're high on cheap gasoline. Our current distemper is caused by the reality that in a world that loves the stuff as much as we do and that is beginning to use it with a profligacy that matches our own, we're going to have to pay much more to get it.
There is not an inexhaustible supply of oil. There is not now, nor has there ever been, and nor will there ever be an inexhaustible finite resource. Get over it. Let's start withdrawing now. Let's face, share, and manage the pain. Let's deal with our own greed either by using only what we need or paying more of the real price for using more than what is needed. Yeah, carbon and horsepower taxes, and congestion pricing to control the egregious fuel waste in urban rush-hour traffic jams.
When it comes to oil, it's not going to get much better than this.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Why Is It ?
Well here I go again. Why is it the media makes such a buzz about Rev. Jeffrey Wright and all of the so called "negative things" he has to say about our country but we have heard nothing of Condoleeza Rice and the truthful things she has to say. I believe her and Rev Wright are saying similar things but phrase it a little differently. For those of you who missed it thanks to the biased media, I will recap:
"Condoleezza Rice today entered the race debate that has been a simmering undercurrent of the presidential campaign when she said it had been "important" for Barack Obama to give his landmark speech on race and defended the patriotism of African Americans.
The US secretary of state also decried the "birth defect" of slavery that she said has left Americans struggling to confront racism.
"Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains," Rice told the Washington Times. "That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."
Rice, the second African-American and second female in US history to lead the state department, grew up in Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement in America. One of her childhood playmates was killed in an infamous 1963 church bombing committed by white supremacists, whom Rice has called "terrorists".
She declined to comment directly on the presidential campaign in the Times interview, saying only that it was "important" that Obama "gave it for a whole host of reasons", but strongly defended the patriotism of African Americans. Video clips of Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, shouting, "God damn America," ignited the race row that has been dominating the Democratic presidential race. Conservatives have also accused Obama and his wife, Michelle, of displaying insufficient love for the country.
"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them - and that's our legacy," Rice said.
Now I know I promised to shorten my blogs going forward but I felt I had to present this to you since our media did not find it newsworthy enough to cover at length and blew past it. Until next time, ask yourself "Why Is It ?
"Condoleezza Rice today entered the race debate that has been a simmering undercurrent of the presidential campaign when she said it had been "important" for Barack Obama to give his landmark speech on race and defended the patriotism of African Americans.
The US secretary of state also decried the "birth defect" of slavery that she said has left Americans struggling to confront racism.
"Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains," Rice told the Washington Times. "That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."
Rice, the second African-American and second female in US history to lead the state department, grew up in Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement in America. One of her childhood playmates was killed in an infamous 1963 church bombing committed by white supremacists, whom Rice has called "terrorists".
She declined to comment directly on the presidential campaign in the Times interview, saying only that it was "important" that Obama "gave it for a whole host of reasons", but strongly defended the patriotism of African Americans. Video clips of Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, shouting, "God damn America," ignited the race row that has been dominating the Democratic presidential race. Conservatives have also accused Obama and his wife, Michelle, of displaying insufficient love for the country.
"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them - and that's our legacy," Rice said.
Now I know I promised to shorten my blogs going forward but I felt I had to present this to you since our media did not find it newsworthy enough to cover at length and blew past it. Until next time, ask yourself "Why Is It ?
Friday, May 9, 2008
Ask - Invite - Trust
This is my first week of blogging so I have to apologize if I get a little long winded. The primary purpose of this blog was to introduce the world to The Providence Packers Youth Football and Cheerleading Organization but now I realize it can be so much more than that so I intend to continue updating this blog. I promise that after today, my blogs will be a lot shorter but will reflect our desire to stimulate your thought process and get dialogue moving. With that being said,
ASK > INVITE > TRUST
Three bold verbs that embody what it is that we, as an Organization, are here to accomplish.
We are here to provide a product and service which provides our youth with a compelling reason to turn to the The Providence Packers as one of their primary solutions providers. The Providence Packers Organization is a process innovation that provides a solution to inner city youth that simply want and demand a better quality of life, a better quality of service.
Our strategy is to drive our children to
1. Ask: The Providence Packers Organization for fresh ideas, inspiration and instruction.
2. Invite: The Providence Packers Organization into their lives to be their coach, their personal assistant, their friend.
3. Trust: The Providence Packers Organization to provide solutions that work and exceed expectations.
Ask > Invite > Trust: The desired end result of the commitment by all of our leaders to remain focused on why we are here, what we do and how we will go about our day to day operations. It's a call to action that engages our endless curiosity, our passion, and our drive to be first and best in everything that we do.
OUR PURPOSE (why are we here)
Every organization has to have a reason to exist, a reason that answers the fundamental question of why are we here? While it is true that we are here to teach children the fundamentals of football and cheerleading, this is not our purpose. For The Providence Packers Organization, this big question has a simple answer:
We are here to enhance our children’s life and educational experiences.
We will accomplish this by providing our children with an educational base that will provide the most effective and practical whole product solution for success in any walk of life. Strengthening their opportunities for success will be the added reward of the lasting and impressionable experiences that our children will benefit from when they share the end result of their learning experience with family and friends.
MISSION (what we do)
The Providence Packers Organization is an on-demand sports and lifestyle oriented mentoring organization
Our committed staff will walk our children through the entire life process from start to finish without missing a single step. Our approach will be to deliver positive life experiences and mentoring directly into our children’s lives.
It is important to note that we are not totally a sports driven organization. Our content is developed solely to maximize learning and provide our children with a step by step experience that produces results that work.
Our organization will be instantly recognizable by our high quality, simple, but effective formula. Our name “The Providence Packers” will however be branded as a process innovation, a new way to learn how to live that will provide a compelling alternate to traditional lifestyles that end up a dead end street.
VALUES (How we will get there)
Values are the principles and beliefs that guide the decisions and actions of individuals, cultures and businesses.
For The Providence Packers Organization, our Values are more than just a set of words. The following values reflect the energy and spirit of an organization that has the solid foundation to lead change as the world around us evolves and they articulate a code of behavior that guides us through that change with integrity.
The values reflected here are a call to action that asks every The Providence Packers Organization Board Member, Co-coordinator, Officer, coach, parent and child to commit to a common set of beliefs about how we work in our World today.
Our four corporate values also suggest the most important but simplest reason we exist,
L.I.F.E ! We value the well-being of our children and will try to provide positive learning solutions that provide children with the right tools and information to lead healthier lives
LOYALTY
We are loyal to our children, our affiliates, our parents and the Organization. We are grateful to each and every one of our parents and children for placing their trust in our organization. We are grateful to our affiliates for their commitment to our success and their contributions which continue to move us forward. We are grateful to our recreation department partners for embracing our vision and helping us achieve it. We are grateful to our corporate sponsors and prize their investment capital as if it were our own and will work effortlessly to maximize return on investment for all, not cash but that being successful children who become positive forces in our society.
INTEGRITY
Honesty, Responsibility and Accountability, three guiding fundamentals that govern our quest to be an organization with the highest standard of ethical conduct. We earn the trust of others through consistent honesty, truthfulness and transparency in all our relationships and business transactions. We accept responsibility for success and failure. We take accountability for all of our decisions and actions. We never make excuses for anything or anyone. We were, are and always will be an organization to trust and believe in.
FREEDOM
We inspire to be an open innovative learning organization led with a relentless commitment to understand, anticipate and fulfill the needs of our children. For The Providence Packers Organization, this innovation starts with an invitation to our leaders and staff to imagine, to dream and to do things outside the box. To be creative in all our solutions coupled with empowerment. The solutions developed and implemented by our team(s) are designed and communicated to our children with the goal of instilling confidence and a freedom to achieve which will be inherent in all our offerings. Be informed, Be inspired, Be free.
EVOLUTION
We are an organization led with a passion and commitment for growth and advancement. We set and meet aggressive commitments for self and others. We are willing and free to stretch and exceed the expectations of our children, our leaders and our parents. We are leaders that stimulate new growth and evolve the way in which people learn. And most importantly, we seek out opportunities to lead this change.
Always With Unyielding Integrity!
ASK > INVITE > TRUST
Three bold verbs that embody what it is that we, as an Organization, are here to accomplish.
We are here to provide a product and service which provides our youth with a compelling reason to turn to the The Providence Packers as one of their primary solutions providers. The Providence Packers Organization is a process innovation that provides a solution to inner city youth that simply want and demand a better quality of life, a better quality of service.
Our strategy is to drive our children to
1. Ask: The Providence Packers Organization for fresh ideas, inspiration and instruction.
2. Invite: The Providence Packers Organization into their lives to be their coach, their personal assistant, their friend.
3. Trust: The Providence Packers Organization to provide solutions that work and exceed expectations.
Ask > Invite > Trust: The desired end result of the commitment by all of our leaders to remain focused on why we are here, what we do and how we will go about our day to day operations. It's a call to action that engages our endless curiosity, our passion, and our drive to be first and best in everything that we do.
OUR PURPOSE (why are we here)
Every organization has to have a reason to exist, a reason that answers the fundamental question of why are we here? While it is true that we are here to teach children the fundamentals of football and cheerleading, this is not our purpose. For The Providence Packers Organization, this big question has a simple answer:
We are here to enhance our children’s life and educational experiences.
We will accomplish this by providing our children with an educational base that will provide the most effective and practical whole product solution for success in any walk of life. Strengthening their opportunities for success will be the added reward of the lasting and impressionable experiences that our children will benefit from when they share the end result of their learning experience with family and friends.
MISSION (what we do)
The Providence Packers Organization is an on-demand sports and lifestyle oriented mentoring organization
Our committed staff will walk our children through the entire life process from start to finish without missing a single step. Our approach will be to deliver positive life experiences and mentoring directly into our children’s lives.
It is important to note that we are not totally a sports driven organization. Our content is developed solely to maximize learning and provide our children with a step by step experience that produces results that work.
Our organization will be instantly recognizable by our high quality, simple, but effective formula. Our name “The Providence Packers” will however be branded as a process innovation, a new way to learn how to live that will provide a compelling alternate to traditional lifestyles that end up a dead end street.
VALUES (How we will get there)
Values are the principles and beliefs that guide the decisions and actions of individuals, cultures and businesses.
For The Providence Packers Organization, our Values are more than just a set of words. The following values reflect the energy and spirit of an organization that has the solid foundation to lead change as the world around us evolves and they articulate a code of behavior that guides us through that change with integrity.
The values reflected here are a call to action that asks every The Providence Packers Organization Board Member, Co-coordinator, Officer, coach, parent and child to commit to a common set of beliefs about how we work in our World today.
Our four corporate values also suggest the most important but simplest reason we exist,
L.I.F.E ! We value the well-being of our children and will try to provide positive learning solutions that provide children with the right tools and information to lead healthier lives
LOYALTY
We are loyal to our children, our affiliates, our parents and the Organization. We are grateful to each and every one of our parents and children for placing their trust in our organization. We are grateful to our affiliates for their commitment to our success and their contributions which continue to move us forward. We are grateful to our recreation department partners for embracing our vision and helping us achieve it. We are grateful to our corporate sponsors and prize their investment capital as if it were our own and will work effortlessly to maximize return on investment for all, not cash but that being successful children who become positive forces in our society.
INTEGRITY
Honesty, Responsibility and Accountability, three guiding fundamentals that govern our quest to be an organization with the highest standard of ethical conduct. We earn the trust of others through consistent honesty, truthfulness and transparency in all our relationships and business transactions. We accept responsibility for success and failure. We take accountability for all of our decisions and actions. We never make excuses for anything or anyone. We were, are and always will be an organization to trust and believe in.
FREEDOM
We inspire to be an open innovative learning organization led with a relentless commitment to understand, anticipate and fulfill the needs of our children. For The Providence Packers Organization, this innovation starts with an invitation to our leaders and staff to imagine, to dream and to do things outside the box. To be creative in all our solutions coupled with empowerment. The solutions developed and implemented by our team(s) are designed and communicated to our children with the goal of instilling confidence and a freedom to achieve which will be inherent in all our offerings. Be informed, Be inspired, Be free.
EVOLUTION
We are an organization led with a passion and commitment for growth and advancement. We set and meet aggressive commitments for self and others. We are willing and free to stretch and exceed the expectations of our children, our leaders and our parents. We are leaders that stimulate new growth and evolve the way in which people learn. And most importantly, we seek out opportunities to lead this change.
Always With Unyielding Integrity!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
In my duties as President of a youth football organization, I will probably be invited to speak to various youth organizations. On these occasions I will always asked this question, "What one thing do you think we need to teach our kids?"
My answer, "Responsibility," will always raise eyebrows.In our society today, role models (pop stars, pro athletes, and politicians) blame their mistakes on others. I have heard it said that our youth do not meet expectations. Our youth fitness level is at an all-time low. Parents blame the schools. Schools blame the parents for allowing fast food consumption, substance abuse, and hours spent with TV and video games. The media blames everyone: latchkey kids, "McParents," disinterested teachers, and lack of government funds. Youth suicide and violence are common place. Here the finger pointing is even worse. Teachers, lawyers and judges all play the "Blame Game." Criminals are not responsible for their actions because ???.
Responsibility is an ORPHAN! Academics achievements in the classroom, together with the development of character, individual and team skills, the will to win, and a sense of fair play and sportsmanship in athletic competition determines distinction in youth athletics programs. Such groups require commitment from our youth, parents, alumni, community and friends at all levels of interest.
"This game of football is dedicated to our country and the fine youngsters playing the game. This is a classroom. They may get some bark scraped off their nose, but they are learning the value of courage, confidence and teamwork. Welcome to America's Leadership Laboratory."Just think about this; It costs more to send a kid to jail than to Yale. Our kids are being poisoned. Yes, poisoned! Physically and mentally, and what are we doing about it?Every one of us is responsible. We need to be more active. Our sport is under siege. We have enemies outside and sadly inside the sport. We must not allow the decay to continue. Let's all of us take the responsibility to alert America.
The face of football is NOT "Beer, Brawls and Betting!"
THE TRUE FACE OF FOOTBALL IS THE MILLIONS OF KIDS AND VOLUNTEERS!
My answer, "Responsibility," will always raise eyebrows.In our society today, role models (pop stars, pro athletes, and politicians) blame their mistakes on others. I have heard it said that our youth do not meet expectations. Our youth fitness level is at an all-time low. Parents blame the schools. Schools blame the parents for allowing fast food consumption, substance abuse, and hours spent with TV and video games. The media blames everyone: latchkey kids, "McParents," disinterested teachers, and lack of government funds. Youth suicide and violence are common place. Here the finger pointing is even worse. Teachers, lawyers and judges all play the "Blame Game." Criminals are not responsible for their actions because ???.
Responsibility is an ORPHAN! Academics achievements in the classroom, together with the development of character, individual and team skills, the will to win, and a sense of fair play and sportsmanship in athletic competition determines distinction in youth athletics programs. Such groups require commitment from our youth, parents, alumni, community and friends at all levels of interest.
"This game of football is dedicated to our country and the fine youngsters playing the game. This is a classroom. They may get some bark scraped off their nose, but they are learning the value of courage, confidence and teamwork. Welcome to America's Leadership Laboratory."Just think about this; It costs more to send a kid to jail than to Yale. Our kids are being poisoned. Yes, poisoned! Physically and mentally, and what are we doing about it?Every one of us is responsible. We need to be more active. Our sport is under siege. We have enemies outside and sadly inside the sport. We must not allow the decay to continue. Let's all of us take the responsibility to alert America.
The face of football is NOT "Beer, Brawls and Betting!"
THE TRUE FACE OF FOOTBALL IS THE MILLIONS OF KIDS AND VOLUNTEERS!
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