Eating with a Purpose
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
One always looks at leaders but seldom at how the seeds of leadership were planted during their youth. Youth Leaders are made with love, support and generosity of a community around them. The Peter Wulff Center since its inception aspired towards creating an atmosphere of learning together and as such, this post describes the enormous learning that transpired during childhood to produce successful adult leaders today. The evolution of leadership among a group of children who started with small beginnings at various service projects eventually impacted local, national and a global community with their work. Through their acts of service the children built skills, confidence, ability to innovate and leadership. Some of these youth leaders are serving on the Advisory Board at the Peter Wulff Center. Over the years these youth volunteers were transformed by their impact and continued to hone their entrepreneurial skills to go on to win many awards/honors. Here is a short video about the Youth Presidential Award Winners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4nfTuMb0sU&ab_channel=KiranFrey
Lisa Haisha aptly states, “Great leaders do not set out to be a leader…. they set out to make a difference. It’s never about the role, it’s always about the goal”. This is how these children started out as workers in a team trying to do anything to raise funds for designated charities. By 2023 over $222,000 was raised to support a wide range of charities through the nonprofit, Chess Without Borders. For more information go to: https://shulmanchess.com/history-of-chess-in-barrington/
The most recent addition to the Advisory Board is 10 year-old Jack Weed, who has won a national nomination to the Youth Presidential Awards. He demonstrated a curiosity and desire to help last year when he learned about a group of local volunteers who wanted to volunteer in South Korea mostly because their parents served in the Korean war. As a result of this service project other children learned about the Korean war bravely and unselfishly fought by Americans from 1950 -1953. “I learned so much about this war from the fundraising” said 15 year-old Anthony Zhu. In December of last year Jack Weed and his mother accompanied volunteers to Chicago to host a Christmas lunch for 150 ex prisoners and their families. “This means a lot to the people here when children come and meet us to help”, said Pastor Tommy Johnson. Here is a video of this event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjywsL0qseE&t=13s&ab_channel=KiranFrey
Jack is supported in his efforts by his family, school and community. In fact the public school in Barrington, IL also known as District 220 CUSD was instrumental in helping a 9 year-old student in 1998 create a chess program in the school even when no one played chess in the area at that time. Currently Jack is selling spices donated by the talented cook, Zein Bertacchi to raise funds for a computer center founded by the chess community in Barrington in 2010. The computer center was so successful that over 300 underprivileged youth from the Govindpuri area in Delhi, India use it to learn technology. “Without these computers most of these children would never see a computer” said Dharminder Beniwal who runs the computer center at Project Why: www.projectwhy.org. In 2010 eight computers were donated but only 2 computers are working now so the Peter Wulff Center sprang into action to replace 6 non functioning computers so that 300 students can access to computer learning.
The Peter Wulff Center is deeply grateful to Zein for her work and effort in creating the spices for Jack to sell to raise funds for a computer.
Zein Bertacchi leads by example in creativity, enthusiasm and hard work. Her charitable ventures are innovative, charming and engage many youth to follow her creativity or " we try to beat her projects" said 12 year old Prashant Ramachandra a few years ago. She is a passionate and dedicated leader for several causes but especially was instrumental in raising funds for Chess Without Borders in Barrington IL for over 24 years. She has mentored over 100 youth as they volunteered over these years to engage in social entrepreneurship. Together with adult helpers the team enjoys friendships as they create unique opportunities for themselves and others in belonging to a connected and global world.
Please consider helping raise funds for this computer center. You can buy spices, donate money or time. Contact Kiran Frey at kiran.frey59@gmail.com
Here is a video of the computer center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmyDix4rvT0&t=5s&ab_channel=KiranFrey