Les Brown Helps Muncie Housing Authority Reach Youth
Les Brown Teaches Leadership Skills to Muncie Youths
Reprinted From The Muncie
Times for September 3, 1998
Motivational speaker Les Brown is one of several of
the top trainers in the world who are contributing
their time, energy, and resources to support the
Muncie, Indiana Housing Authority Success Center
Partnership. Some of the other participants include
Brian Tracy, Mark Victor Hansen and the Success
Motivation Institute (SMI).
The Success Center was established with the help of
CENTER SPACE and the Ultimate Destiny University for
Successful Living. These non-profit organizations
are helping
Expand the Circle of Success
In America through
a network of locally designed Centers for Successful
Living that provide greater access to some of the
best development training resources in the world.
Brown, who conducted the Youth Leadership Institute
in Muncie, has been working with the founders of
CENTER SPACE since 1990 on similar community
development and youth empowerment programs.
“Mr. Brown donated his services valued at over
$50,000 to provide this life-changing experience for
the young people of Delaware County. His company,
Les Brown Enterprises, also provided access to the
audio video based training programs Les has created
which the Success Center Partnership will offer on
an ongoing basis” said Betterton, President of
CENTER SPACE, which helped the Muncie Housing
Authority create the Success Center Partnership.
“In addition to Mr. Brown, Paul J. Meyer, Brian
Tracy, Jim Rohn and the Strategic Marketing Group
are providing some of their best training programs
and materials at discount prices and they are
donating thousands of dollars of technical
assistance to help us adapt for public housing
residents these materials that are usually marketed
primarily to corporate America. With this level of
support from some of the best trainers in the world,
we will surely succeed in our mission of helping
American’s discover that we are one people, one
community, with one economy and one future’ he
added.
Les Brown and Mike Williams, his mentor and a
training expert, are helping CENTER SPACE design new
programs and materials. There will be a number of
follow up activities in Muncie. These include
providing ongoing leadership development training
for the core group who participated in the workshop
with Les and ongoing seminars and workshops using
video, audio and workbook materials.
Initial funding for the training materials has been
provided through a recent grant from the Muncie
Delaware County Community Foundation. Grants for
additional materials, staff to participate in a
training of trainers program and program design are
being developed.
One long-range activity being planned is a national
conference in Indianapolis to provide opportunities
for other housing authorities to gather for two days
of seminars, workshops and brainstorming sessions on
how to replicate the Success Center Partnership in
other communities.
“If things continue to go as well as we expect in
Muncie, we would like to take this program to other
places” said Brown. “The youth participating in the
Institute all completed a Contract With Myself to
take action and engage other people and they signed
the Seeds of Greatness Pledge.”
“Each one of them will touch another 3 or 4 people,
other youth, their families, community leaders and
others. They will help involve some other people in
lifting their lives and enhancing their sense of
self and moving onto some kind of community agenda
beyond just what happens to their own lives.”
“They can then take a greater interest in what
happens in the community at large. As these young
people get together, reach out to engage others, and
get involved, there will be an even greater positive
impact within the community and perhaps throughout
the nation” Brown added.
“We established the Success Center Partnership in
late 1997 to expand the economic and educational
opportunities for public housing residents,
especially youth, by enhancing access to successful
life and work skills training, job readiness
training, job placement assistance, and
self-employment training to help residents start
their own small businesses. “said Benita Smith,
Executive Director of the Muncie Housing Authority.
“Through the Center, the Housing Authority provides
innovative educational programs that enable and
encourage residents to participate in personal
growth, success and achievement programs. It also
fosters community mobilization and civic pride
initiatives, and activities designed to help
residents and resident organizations develop
increased abilities for helping direct their lives
and influence the institutions that affect them,
their families and the community.”
“When we held the first meeting of the Success
Center Partnership last November, we invited
fifty-five community leaders to attend. We had hoped
that at least ten to twelve might attend.” Smith
continued.
‘We were pleasantly surprised when over forty
individuals attended that meeting and just in the
past few months, over 80 people representing over 50
organizations and businesses in every sector of the
community have participated.”
Betterton said: "Ms. Benita Smith shared our vision,
she appreciated the significance of the Success
Center and she responded with the courage and
leadership required to bring the vision forth for
the benefit of the larger community. We commend Ms.
Smith and expect the Muncie Housing Authority to be
awarded recognition by HUD and NAHRO” he continued.
The T-shirts for the youth were donated by Life’s An
Attitude Wear, a Colleyville, Texas company
dedicated to promoting drug free lifestyles for
youth. The company, founded on a principle of
helping improve the quality of life, is committed to
drug education and offering hope to the children of
those who did not make a choice to be “drug free.”
"By wearing our “Official Drug Free and Proud Of It
Apparel”, young people let the world know they are
drug free and proud of it” said Steve Hakes,
President of Life’s An Attitude Wear. “ We are
grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the
success of Mr. Brown’s Youth Leadership Institute.
We share his commitment to youth empowerment and his
larger vision of a drug free America.”
“That’s why our company donates 20% of the profits
from the sale of all our products to Life’s An
Attitude Scholarship Foundation for children who
have, or who have lost, a drug dependent parent” he
continued.
“Les Brown is one of the most effective motivational
speakers and trainers in the world and his message
helps people lift up their vision, Increase their
sense of self-esteem and maximize their
effectiveness in every area of successful living”
said Smith.
“We are so deeply grateful to Mr. Brown for bringing
his intensive personal development program here to
Muncie to help our young people develop a larger
vision of themselves and help them learn how to set
goals and achieve their dreams.”
The Seeds of Greatness Pledge
I do hereby pledge to discover and develop the
greatness in me and to plant Seeds of Greatness, in
my words as well as my deeds, for myself, for my
family and for my community. God, grant me the
courage and the wisdom to do what I can, to help
make the world a better place. Copyright 1998 by
Les Brown Enterprises
For information on the Success Center Partnership
and future training programs based on Les Brown’s
materials, contact Charles Betterton of Ultimate
Destiny University 760-212-9931.
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