Welcome to the 2015 Parents Luncheon

March 14, 2014
Newark Club

Welcome to the Parents Luncheon
Ronni Denes, President
New Jersey SEEDS

Hello Parents – I’m thrilled to be here today to see you again. On March 9th, 2011, at the end of my very first week at New Jersey SEEDS, I attended my first Parents Luncheon. You were all so welcoming and so warm – and you are so important to the SEEDS family – that every year since that time, I’ve relished this opportunity.

It’s hard for me to believe, but this is my fifth anniversary with you… and I’m very happy that we can celebrate it together.

But today, I’d like to talk with you about a far more momentous anniversary… one that has tremendous meaning for you and your children. Last week, on March 7th, more than 70,000 people including President Barack Obama, with his family and former President George Bush, walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama. They were marking the 50th anniversary of what has come to be known as Bloody Sunday.

It was a day when nonviolent marchers attempted to walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to secure the right to vote – the most basic American right – for African Americans… only to be met with unspeakable violence from the police.

The absolute horror and brutality of that day – broadcast on television into living rooms all across America – finally led to passage of the Voting Rights Act just a few months later.

While a tremendous amount has changed in America, as President Obama pointed out, our work to create a country that truly values its rich differences is far from done. And that’s where SEEDS needs your help.

You know, I can look out across this room or across an auditorium filled with SEEDS scholars and see what looks like all of the people of the United States in miniature… a veritable United Nations, if you will. We are so diverse and yet so much in harmony. As your children move into environments where there is far less diversity, the way you teach them to view the world is crucial.

The great African American poet Maya Angelou said, “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

And the great Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez agreed. He said, “We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community – and this nation.”

Whether we are talking about race, religion, nationality, gender, income, class… we as a community of parents and educators, need to see that our young people are never diminished by feeling different; that they feel good about who they are.

These issues – these points of difference – are very much on the minds of the leaders of the schools in which we place SEEDS scholars. Their goal is to create learning environments that look and act like America at its very best.

We need our children, your children, SEEDS’ children to lead by example… to go into their schools and communities with a feeling of pride in the richness of their culture and heritage… and a willingness to learn about and appreciate the culture and heritage of others.

President Obama was speaking to his children and your children, and my children on that bridge in Selma last week. He said, “Everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, and new ground to cover, and bridges to be crossed.

“And it is you, the young and fearless at heart, the most diverse and educated generation in our history, who the nation is waiting to follow.”

Welcome all of you to the annual SEEDS Parents Luncheon. Thank you for your enormous dedication to your children and to education. With your support… they will make the world a better place.

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