The rise of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land is the ultimate symbol that anybody can do anything in this country, regardless of race or economic status, if given the opportunity. It is an inspirational event which reaffirms our mission at ABC of New Canaan. We devote ourselves to giving minority students and underprivileged kids “a better chance” to succeed by providing them with the same educational opportunities often taken for granted by those more fortunate. We then encourage them to make the best of that opportunity as they head out into the world.

The A Better Chance organization was founded when John F. Kennedy called for equal access to the nation’s top schools for students of color. In 1973, our chapter was established and for 35 years the New Canaan community has been dedicated to ABC’s simple idea that better educational opportunities lead to better lives. The people of New Canaan have helped enhance the lives of 64 hard-working and determined young men who became part of our community and graduated from New Canaan High School. Our alumni have gone on to college, graduate programs and professional careers in law, business, technology and education, achieving greater things than they or their parents thought possible. At the same time, these boys have enriched our lives by providing the valuable diversity that better reflects the country that we live in today.

I hope you will consider making a donation to A Better Chance of New Canaan. Your continued support will allow us to keep offering this life-changing opportunity to deserving young men.

Thank you for your continued support,

Since my freshman year, I’ve had the privilege of hearing some great ABC scholars—Rodney Yartey, Carl Brown, and Eric Ho—share their thoughts on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is somewhat intimidating to follow in their footsteps, but I believe that these past four years in the ABC Program have helped prepare me to surmount such challenges.

Dr. King once said, “What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” The segregation of the Jim Crow South was not only hurtful to African Americans; it was hurtful to the entire nation. Racism is an assault on the very ideals on which this country was founded—on the notion that “All men are created equal.”

King hoped to tear down the divisive walls of racism to form a truly United States. While nearly 40 years have passed since he lived, Dr. King’s teachings and message are still prevalent in our society and must remain so. I believe that the ABC Program keeps Dr. King’s dream alive in offering improved educational opportunities to minorities to right past injustices. I am proud to be part of this program and the caring community that supports its mission. Today is about celebrating and honoring one man’s commitment to justice, and remembering the struggles that King and others endured in the fight for equality. King’s story of activism and adversity often reminds of the struggles my own family faced in seeking better opportunities.

My parents both grew up in an impoverished agricultural region of Ecuador. While he was in the sixth grade, my father’s family’s crops failed to grow one season, and he had to drop out of school to work fulltime. My mother attended school through the tenth grade and anticipated going to college, but sudden family illness forced her to leave school as well to help tend the family farm.

My parents eventually immigrated to the United States, but they continued to face hardships. Through their determination, however, they found a foothold and made the best of things in Harlem, New York. The ABC Program has also helped pave the pathway to success for my family. My parents’ dreams really began to solidify seven years ago when my older sister started at the Darien ABC Program. She has since become the first member of my family to attend college and is currently enrolled at Columbia University on a full scholarship. And I stand here, just five months from graduating New Canaan High School and pursuing higher education.

But this story would not have been written if not for the spark that Dr. King lit years ago that still burns in the hearts of passionate, idealistic people today. Like my parents, Dr.

King believed that change is possible. My parents hoped to change the future for my siblings and me, as Martin Luther King dreamed of changing the country by eliminating racism.

During the march on Washington for jobs and freedom in 1963, Martin Luther King delivered one of the most electrifying speeches in the history of America. With more than a quarter of a million listeners gathered—the largest protest the country had ever witnessed—Dr. King preached one inspirational statement after another. I’d like to recite his entire speech, but in the interest of time, I’ll just quote one of my favorite lines:

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

The American dream is greatly revered in this country—the notion that any individual can achieve success through hard work and determination is a major building block of our cultural identity. But racism and segregation created barriers in hindering million of minorities' pursuits of the American dream. In its compassionate integrity, however, the ABC program looks to rectify the lasting ill effects of past racist practices. The A Better Chance Program of New Canaan is a perfect example of the "table of brotherhood" that Dr. King envisioned.

ABC represents the potential for people of different races to live in harmony and to continue advocating Dr. King's dream for equality. I believe it is partially because of Dr. King that minorities like myself now have the opportunity to go to college and accomplish our dreams.

Dr. King's repetition of "I have a dream" is powerful in his famed speech because dreams are universal seeds of hope that keep us motivated and striving to succeed. I have the utmost regard for Dr. King, as his dreams helped inspire and make possible my own dreams and those of countless others. It is encouraging to see so many like-minded people gathered here today, and I know that we will continue fighting the good fight to truly make Dr. King's dreams a reality.
 

Thank you.

Editor's Note: Juan Puma is a member of the class of 2012 at Hamilton College.

ABC's Eric Ho is 2007 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Essayist

Steven Gallego Receives NCHS Jack Dempsey Memorial Award

June 1, 2007, New Canaan High School Head Football Coach Lou Marinelli presented senior Steve Gallego (above) with the Jack Dempsey Memorial Award at the school's annual awards ceremony. The award certificate was accompanied by an engraved plaque and gold clock desk set which cites The Jack Dempsey Memorial Award - for heroism, sacrifice and loyalty in the face of adversity.

When asked later if the award was for any specific act of heroism or sacrifice, Steven replied with his characteristic modesty, "I don't recall." The award is not intended specifically for athletic achievement, but to recognize exemplary character. Steven did say that that made it even more important to him to receive the award from Coach Marinelli.

A Better Chance of New Canaan President Melinda Fager congratulated Steven by saying, "it just doesn't get any better than this."

Editor's Note: Steven Gallego is a member of the class of 2011 at Villanova.

Photo courtesy of the New Canaan News~Review

January, 11, 2007. This year's annual celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was held at the United Methodist Church in New Canaan on January 15. Each year the event brings together New Canaan's races and religions, families, youth, adults and seniors for the ecumenical program of speeches and music.

Speakers from New Canaan's religious and community leadership, and gospel music by the Serendipity Choir filled this year's program. Each year one young man from the ABC House in New Canaan is invited to take the pulpit and deliver an essay about how Dr. King's achievements 40 years ago benefit Americans today.

This year's ABC essayist, Eric Ho, a senior at the high school remarked that the opportunity to go through the ABC program would not have been possible without the civil rights movement and Dr. King's commitment to leave the world a better place than he found it.

Eric's outstanding essay included vignettes of his personal history as an Asian-American whose parents are Chinese immigrants, and his insights into the minority experience seen through the eyes of an inner-city youngster and now as a college-bound young man in pursuit of the American dream.

Full text of Eric's essay:

Martin Luther King Jr's Legacy for Asian-Americans

When I was first asked to speak on behalf of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr I was skeptical and reluctant to accept the offer. I asked to myself “What does this Asian kid possibly have to say about the great Dr. King?” then it occurred to me right then and there. There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said already. Dr. King’s life has been documented extensively and his memory is well preserved in American history forever, but generally speaking I am standing before you today because I have a genuine voice of my own to share. I’d also like to share and reminisce in Dr. King’s legacy and memory with you all this morning.

As you all probably know, I’m a senior at the ABC house of New Canaan, and these past four years living in this town I’ve really gotten a strong understanding of what it means to be part of a community. Your community is where your foundations and principles are based upon and when I think of Dr. King I think of how strong and committed he was for the communities and affiliations he was involved with. He was a leader as a minister at the Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama as well as being a important figure for the NAACP. Dr. King was the central catalyst for African-Americans during the civil rights movement; he gained mass influence among his supporters and never let them down. He was true to himself through his words, the practice of nonviolence, and the act of protest. To imagine how powerful a community can be when every one stands together hand in hand to fight for a single cause is astonishing, but for an entire country to come together, we would be able to overcome anything.

This is where the all famous “I have a Dream” speech comes in; Martin Luther King stood poised and spoke eloquently, candidly, and passionately for freedom, equality, and for a country where someday all people are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. It was a pivotal speech that led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Remember, when the Civil Rights Act was first passed it didn’t just mean everyone was going to wake up the next morning sharing the same lunch tables, going to the same churches, or sharing the same water fountains. For we are a species of habit and unless we break out of our daily routine we will never be able to experience change in life. What I’m speaking about are the divisions in our multicultural America that segregates each and every one of us. Just look around us, why is it that so many black people live in Harlem, all the Chinese reside in China town, and the Italians live in little Italy? It’s not a coincidence that your not suppose to mix apples and oranges but when you do mix a bunch of fruits together, you get a pretty good fruit salad.

One of the toughest decisions I had to make at the young age of 13 was to leave my family and my home in New York to attend high school in the town of New Canaan through the assistance of the ABC program. What made it so difficult was the fact that it wasn’t my decision to make. When I first came up here for an interview, I was afraid; I had never spent a night in my life anywhere besides the city. I remember feeling uncomfortable, lonely, and insecure. I hated the thought of spending the next four years in a predominately white town. Especially the thought of being the only Asian living in a house with six other African-American scared the crap out of me. When I got home after my interview I vowed I would never go back. Fortunately my parents accepted the opportunity offered me behind my back or else I would never have been able to take advantage of the first class education NCHS has offered me, or the roof the ABC House put over my head, and not to mention generosity of the community.

When I compared my fear to commit to the ABC program. I thought of my parents. As a first generation born Chinese-American, my parents immigrated to the United States seeking to peruse the American dream. The risk that my parents took to leave, not only their home, but your own native country to come to America not knowing a single word in English, and making a living to send me and my three brothers through the American public school system is unbelievable. They wanted to climb the ladder so that their children could move on where they left off. It takes a lot of courage to overcome adversity, and to overcome adversity proves the importance of resilience.

Nearly four years later, I am six months away from being only the second Asian out of 60 New Canaan ABC scholars to graduate from New Canaan High school in the past 30 years. I have reaped the benefits of a program created initially to provide African-Americans with an advantage for equal access to the nation's top schools, education, and career opportunities. All of this wouldn’t be possible today for me and minorities across the country if it weren’t for the roots of the civil rights movement, and Dr. King’s goal to leave the world a better place than he found it. I felt that Dr. King’s dream and determination paved the way for others to have hope and dreams of their own. I am still part of dream on a larger scale, to send myself to college, be successful, and give back to those who have made it possible. Then those who have ever supported me could watch their dream come true. One day I will rest in peace like Dr. King knowing the world is still awake to keep the dream alive.

Editor's Note: Eric Ho is a member of the class of 2011 at Union College.