Burlingame Celebrates Hope With The Elfenworks Foundation

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How much of a difference can one organization make in five years? In how many ways can it help those stymied in their pursuit of the American Dream? In its half-decade as an incorporated non-profit, the Burlingame-based Elfenworks Foundation has made strides in overcoming some of the biggest challenges facing American society, most notably poverty.

In celebration of and the good works being done throughout America in fields ranging from education to social injustice, the organization hosted its annual ceremony Tuesday night at honoring game changers from across the country.

This year’s three recipients are making remarkable changes in the fields of education and foster care.

“These are people who really are just rocking the world,” said Elfenworks founder and CEO Lauren Speeth. “For me it’s a real night of hope.”

When choosing recipients of the award, Speeth and her team turn to seven criteria, handed down to Speeth during a mentoring session with President Jimmy Carter back when Elfenworks was just getting started. Speeth called the meeting an extraordinary opportunity that came at a time when she looked at the issues facing Americans and began formulating solutions.

The seven pillars include following one’s vision, tuning out naysayers, utilizing one’s special skills and having a long-term view.

“Ever single one of these visionaries measures up to these seven criteria,” Speeth said of the winners.

Speeth said in a time when negative news dominates the media, the In Harmony with Hope ceremony highlights the people working towards real solutions—and making meaningful progress—builds bridges between the innovators and the community and generates hope.

Actor and philanthropist Danny Glover emceed the event and applauded the work done by the In Harmony with Hope honorees.

“These are the stories that become our collective stories,” he said. “[They] reflect all the possibilities of what we can be and what we can do.”

Three visionaries create hope through innovative programs

The award winners this years include Brenda Krause Eheart of Champaign, Ill., who developed Hope Meadows, a community where families adopting three to four foster kids and senior citizens live rent-free in exchange for creating a supportive, permanent family environment for the children.

“They are truly the reason I have hope in this very troubled time,” said Eheart of the parents, “grandparents” and children at Hope Meadow. “It is up to us…to change the future for the most vulnerable among us, and if we do not, who will?”

Another award recipient, Jim McCorkell of St. Paul, Minn., created Admission Possible to help low-income and often first-generation college students—as he once was—earn college admission. Using Americorps volunteers as college coaches, McCorkell has created a program that has grown from 35 students to several thousand. Of the students, 98 percent are accepted into college and 80 percent graduate.

“There’s a huge gap in this country between who goes to college and who doesn’t,” McCorkell told Patch. “[Higher education] is the best pathway out of poverty.”

The third recipient is Bill Milliken of Washington, D.C., who founded Communities in Schools to build networks of families, schools and community leaders to support at-risk youth. He began the program in Harlem, NY due to his own experiences as a high school dropout whose chance encounter with a caring adult taught him the power of relationships. The program has grown to serve 1.3 million students throughout 3,000 schools, turning high school dropouts into college graduates through providing students with a network of support.

“You’ve got to get kids turned on to living before they’ll get turned on to learning,” Milliken said. “The kids I see make it make it because we allow them to make it. We created a sense of community.”

When asked if the works of the Elfenworks Foundation and its award recipients help foster the American Dream, Speeth responded, “I sure hope so. We are a people that are optimistic, and just as it’s been said there’s nothing to fear but fear, [I think] there’s nothing to really fear but the lack of hope.”

The Elfenworks Foundation philosophy

The award winners’ ideas correlate to the Elfenworks Foundation’s ideals of propelling hope through concrete solutions, including academic and media projects and partnerships, which collaboratively solve the problem of poverty.

Some of the organization’s biggest partnerships include the Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Poverty & Inequality and Campus Moviefest, the largest student film and music festival in the country.

Speeth said after pursing academic partnerships, she realized the impact of social media, which encouraged her to get involved with Campus Moviefest. The entries for the Elfenworks Foundation’s social justice prize received 1.4 million hits last year.

“We could never be that creative,” Speeth said. “[Students are] the foot soldiers of hope for this country.”

Although Speeth downplayed her own creativity, the foundation’s documentary Faces of Poverty is up for the Crystal Swan Award for Best Film at the Swan Film Festival in Perth, Australia. She said she believes the film’s poor showing in America resulted in it hitting too close to home. Poverty, especially with the recent economic downtown, has become suburbanized, and she hopes it fares better outside the U.S.

Overall, Tuesday night’s festivities celebrated both the success of the award recipients and the five years of work by the Elfenworks Foundation and its partners.

“I really do want the take away to be with people’s involvement we can turn this around,” she said. “It feels like people are saying, ‘Yes, I do want to hear these stories about these people. Yes, I do want to hear a message of hope.’”

The foundation will soon be posting the 2011 In Harmony with Hope awards ceremony on its website.