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For Imediate Release Contact: Carmon Cunningham 617.728.4446 ccunningham@jff.org        MAKING A DIFFERENCE AWARDS HONOR FOUR Presentation Opens Two-Day Gathering of Business and Government Leaders to Find Solutions for Education and Workforce Crisis   September 19, 2005  BOSTON, MA—On Monday, September 19, the first Arthur H. White Making a Difference Awards will recognize four extraordinary individuals—from organizations in Los Angeles, San Jose, Hartford, and Boston—who have improved the lives of people in their communities. In this first year of the Arthur H. White Making a Difference Award, cash prizes of $3,000 each honor: Pablo Alvarado, National Coordinator, National Day Labor Organizing Network, Los Angeles, California; Marilyn Bliss, Coordinator, Medical Magnet Program, Andrew Hill High School, San Jose, California; Stephen Perry, Director, Capital Preparatory Magnet School, Hartford, Connecticut; and Neil Silverston, President and Co-founder, WorkSource Partners (See below for more information on these Making a Difference Award winners.) The Awards Presentation will open The Fate of the American Dream: A National Forum on Strengthening Our Education and Skills Pipeline, a two-day event sponsored by Jobs for the Future, Ford Motor Company Fund, and eight other national corporations. The forum, taking place on September 20, will bring together top corporate, education, and workforce policymakers to address the failure to prepare the nation for the demands of the knowledge-based global economy of the 21st century. Through a dynamic, interactive forum, town hall-style gatherings, and addresses by prominent policymakers, 100 business and government leaders will discuss how we can restore the “American Dream.” Participants will emerge with concrete strategies and resources to help provide more young people and adults with a better education and better careers. The Making a Difference Award was created by Arthur White, who, at a celebration for his 80th birthday, had numerous friends and colleagues suggest that he establish an award to honor his lifelong dedication to affecting social change and making a difference in people’s lives. For over 40 years, Mr. White has worked with corporations, government agencies, industry associations, media, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations to help them find the most effective ways to bring about change in their respective arenas. He has seen many groups overwhelmed by the size and the complexity of the problems they seek to solve and stymied despite the best intentions to do social good—whether to provide jobs in an impoverished community, or bring food to the homeless, or improve educational access for at-risk youth. “It takes a very special individual with the drive, the commitment, and the vision to lead society towards change,” says Mr. White, who, with Hilary Pennington, co-founded Jobs for the Future in 1984. “Such individuals may be called social entrepreneurs or change agents or ‘the new heroes,’ but they all have key characteristics in common. They are able to mitigate problems. Their goal is social change rather than monetary profit. And their currency is passion and innovation rather than dollar bills.” In establishing his award, Mr. White seeks to recognize individuals who serve as catalysts for change and put transformative solutions to work. More important than the cash prize, the award will give the winners access to individuals who can help them further their efforts and a network of support that will enable them to scale up their work. The goal is indeed to make a difference on a broad scale. Highlights of the forum include: Opening Address: William H. Donaldson, 27th Chairman of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission Keynote Address: Patty Stonesifer, President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “Town Hall” Discussion with Corporate & Government Leaders: Facilitated by David Gergen, Harvard Public Service Professor of Leadership and assistant editor of US News & World Report. Panel includes Rep. Howard P. Buck McKeon, (R-CA), Chair, House Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness; Barbara Beck, Executive Vice President, Manpower, Inc.; Henry Johnson, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education; and Guy Patton, President, Fidelity Outsourcing Services Inc. Strengthening America’s Education and Skills Pipeline in the 21st Century. This Fred Friendly Seminar, moderated by Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, will explore the tensions and trade-offs confronting employers in need of skilled workers and the education and workforce systems that must meet those needs. Panel will include Stanley S. Litow, Vice President, IBM Corporation; Calvin Butts, President, SUNY College at Old Westbury, and Pastor, Abyssinian Baptist Church; David Wessel, Wall Street Journal; Jeanne Shaheen, former Governor of New Hampshire and Director, Institute of Politics, Harvard; Jerry Jasinowksi, President, Manufacturing Institute, National Association of Manufacturers; and others.  The forum will conclude with JFF’s release of Education and Skills for the 21st Century: An AGENDA for ACTION. The Agenda looks at how the nation can take advantage of today’s best innovations and new models to rebuild and extend the education pipeline for tomorrow’s needs. ### Founded in 1983, Jobs for the Future is a leading innovator in strategies to accelerate education and career advancement for both young people and adults. Jobs for the Future provides research, consulting and technical assistance on education and workforce development issues to public and private organizations throughout the United States and abroad. For more information on JFF, please visit the Web site at www.jff.org.   About the Winners of the first Arthur H. White Making a Difference Awards Pablo Alvarado National Coordinator, National Day Labor Organizing Network, Los Angeles, California Pablo Alvarado fled El Salvador for political and economic reasons in 1989 and came to the United States where he worked as an undocumented laborer. He worked at a variety of jobs—in factories, as a gardener, as a painter, among others, and experienced first hand the isolation, discrimination, and poverty undocumented workers endure. While on one job, he established a soccer team for the workers as a way of easing tensions between Salvadorans and Mexicans. Alvarado has been organizing on behalf of undocumented workers ever since. In 2002, he became national coordinator of the National Day Labor Organizing Network, where the early soccer experience has evolved into two soccer leagues and is part of a broad cultural effort including chess teams, marathons, theater, and music. NDLON’s mission is “to strengthen and expand the work of local day laborer organizing groups, in order to become more effective and strategic in building leadership, advancing low-wage worker and immigrant rights, and develop successful models for organizing immigrant contingent/temporary workers. NDLON fosters healthy, safer and more humane environments for day laborers to obtain employment and raise their families.” NDLON’s philosophy is summed up in this Cesar Chavez quote prominent on its Web site: “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed; you cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read; you cannot humiliate the person who has pride; and you cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore." Marilyn Bliss Coordinator, Medical Magnet Program, Andrew Hill High School, San Jose, California Marilyn Bliss oversees an extraordinary Medical Magnet Program with over 600 students in six career pathways: direct patient care, sports medicine and rehabilitation, hospital administration, medical research, biotechnology and veterinary medicine. The program’s primary outreach is to minority and low-income students. As part of the Magnet program, she developed the nation’s first pre-college nursing academy, which starts in sophomore year and puts students through a rigorous three-year program based on a college curriculum. The students receive hands-on nursing experience as a part of their training. The program has racked up impressive results: 95 percent of the students graduate from high school; 95 percent of the Magnet graduates go on to college; and 57 percent pursue careers in health care or medicine. These are exceptional numbers in an economically challenged and multicultural community—the dropout rate at Andrew Hill is 22 percent. With support from partnerships with local community colleges, universities, health care institutions, and community agencies, the Medical Magnet Program has become a model being studied widely in California and beyond. Stephen Perry Director, Capital Preparatory Magnet School, Hartford, Connecticut For the past seven years, Stephen Perry has been Director of the Connecticut Collegiate Awareness and Preparation program at Capital Community College in Hartford. ConnCAP is a long-term summer and after-school academic support program for students in grades 7-12 who live in four culturally diverse and economically challenged communities in the Harford area. While, only 3 of every 10 students in Hartford went on to a four-year school in 2003, 100 percent of students in the ConnCAP program did so during Perry’s tenure. Perry, himself a ConnCAP graduate, maintains the fundamental belief that all students, no matter their circumstances, are capable of achieving academic success if given the right supports. By setting and enforcing high standards and making himself available to students and parents 24 hours a day, Perry created an environment that made students feel valued and gave them the belief in themselves to succeed. Perry has spent the last three years turning the success of the ConnCAP program into the Capitol Preparatory Magnet School. He successfully negotiated systemic and institutional barriers, turning a state- and privately funded program into a public magnet school in the city of Hartford. Despite the challenges, the Magnet School opens in September 2005 with approximately 220 students, with a projected future enrollment of over 600. The school will be distinguished by the same rigorous schedule and high expectations as the ConnCAP program out of which it grew. Neil Silverston President and Co-founder, WorkSource Partners, Massachusetts Neil Silverston co-founded WorkSource Partners with Mary Culhane in 1995. Since then, the WorkSource team has provided clients with unique, entry-level, career development programs that combine career development with personal “success” counseling and training. WorkSource Partners’ approach to investment in people is similar to Silverstone’s earlier efforts in social entrepreneurship. In 1987, he co-founded and developed City Year, a privately funded “urban Peace Corps” based in Boston. City Year brings together a diverse group of young people, ages 17 to 23, for a year of full-time community service. City Year has served as a model for AmeriCorps, the country’s national service initiative, and is now in 15 cities across the country. Silverston is on the cutting edge of an innovative approach to ending the severe staffing shortage in the long-term health care industry while providing career opportunities for entry-level staff. He has worked closely with Genesis HealthCare to develop a Regional Advancement Center model and is expanding the effort to other long-term care providers and the acute care industry. WorkSource helped Genesis develop a way to “grow their own” personnel by cultivating the talents of their entry-level workers. By bringing pre-college and college education to the workplace, the Regional Advancement Centers offer employees and community residents a fully supported career ladder from Dietary/Housekeeping to CNA, from CAN to LPN, and from LPN to RN. The initial investment that employers make in education and training is more than offset by the savings in decreased agency and recruitment fees.