Episode 11- Philanthropy and The Champions of Wayne

Rich talks about one of his favorite philanthropic endeavors, The Champions of Wayne Program at Wayne Memorial High School.  It's a somewhat controversial, but highly successful incentive-based hyper-mentorship program.

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Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to the podcast, the common bridge with Richard helpy . Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger , and from time to time I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast. Okay, welcome back again, it's uh , we're here with Richard helpy again for the common bridge. It's always great to be here and rich, I'm going to kind of steer you off course this time. We've been talking a lot about politics and such, but I'm going to put you in the spotlight here. You do a lot of stuff with um , philanthropic endeavors and uh , one of them that's really close to your heart is something called champions of Wayne. And , um, I'd like to have you, if you don't mind, just tell the audience about that. I think it's incredible and um, go ahead and let us know what champions Wayne is all about.

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Well, I hope you've got , uh , a lot of media to record this on because I'm comfortable. I could go for hours on this topic about champions of Wayne and Brian. You're correct. One of the cornerstones of our marriage is to be supportive of our communities and to be philanthropic. And , um, you know, we did that before our ship came in and , uh, we've been blessed with good fortune that's allowed us to do more and we have supported civic and artistic endeavors , uh, but really our hearts around medically and educationally underserved kids , um, early support of cornerstone schools in Detroit , uh, linking them with the Cranbrook educational community. That's kind of a highlight, like to talk about. Um, but you want to talk about champions of Wayne today. So let me tell you what champions of winning is. So , uh, I grew up in the town of Wayne, Michigan, just outside of the, just outside Detroit , uh , right down the Michigan Avenue bus line. And , uh, you know, baby boomer kid, you know , big families , uh, lots of good things happening. Um, Wayne Westland school system was recognized as a very, very good school system. Um , it prepared a lot of , uh , people to go to college, oftentimes the first generation to go to college, solid blue collar, solid blue collar. Yet. Um , I always like to say that my public education was paid for by two Ford plants that were at the edge of town. The , uh, uh, they've gone by different names, but they were at the time was a Michigan truck plant and a Wayne assembly. And , uh, the, and in fact the, those two plants, you could get a diploma from Wayne Memorial high school and go that summer and get a middle-class standard of living to work in, in the, in the factory there. And , um, today , uh, you know, Wayne is , is not that community in terms of those economic opportunities. Um, it is still the same community in terms of just grit and perseverance and nothing can stop us. Um, the community also lost its downtown in the sixties. Uh , they had civil war era buildings. Um, it had shopping district in the middle of town and it took a gamble on something called urban renewal that leveled most of the downtown and made the U S 12 Michigan Avenue two way. Uh , so that sense of identity was really , um, uh, difficult to grab. Uh , it became known as urban removal actually, and not unique to Wayne, but absolutely hit Wayne like a ton of bricks. It did. So , um, in any case, champions of Wayne. So , uh , I'll wind the clock back. I graduated from high school a long time ago and Wayne being very vocationally oriented , um, taught us how to program the computers, the computers that the school system used to run , um , their district or at the high school in a computer room and they taught us how to program them. Uh, I happened to have a talent for doing that. That led to a career which led to starting some businesses, which led to something to um, to be able to pay back. Sure. Um, fast forward 2007 , uh, I was honored to be the commencement speaker at the graduation. Um , the source of shock to my family and friends. Uh, but indeed , uh, did that and uh , connected , uh , actually the superintendent schools at that time was another guy that lived in the neighborhood. And I said to him casually, Hey, if there's anything I can do to help you, let me know when someone's later. I get a letter from the school psychologist guy named bill gray . And bill described his program and he had gotten kids to pair up with a mentor on a goal, very specific to them. And if they achieve the , um, the goal, then they would give them a little recognition, a little pizza party type thing. And then , um, get their name on a trophy. They got a picture taken next to this big trophy and they said, you can go home and tell your grandmother you're a champion. Right? And Bill's letter said, wanted me to fund a $200 for a community college. And I wrote bill back and I said, you don't bill . I think this program is really good and I'll help with the proviso that we take those $200 and we give it to the student directly, right? Knowing the culture there are new , what would change that student's ability to perform academically? Um, and so I got involved. We had 25, 30 kids, the first cohort. Um, I started looking at it like any other business, what's the demand here? Um, what's our constraint factors, you know, the demands like a thousand kids constraint factors, how many mentors can we get? Now it gets interesting because now we start getting the Richard help the business force behind this now, right? It was a , um, clearly a labor of love and we were able to institutionalize this and create a [inaudible] company to runs right next to the , uh , school system and the building administration , um, where we now have , um, upwards of 600 kids every semester and nearly every adult in the buildings a mentor. And it's a broad cross section of kids. We have some kids that , um, uh, typically the goal is , uh , can you prove your grade point , you know , improve your grade point average. Uh, but there are some times it's, it's a behavioral like don't get suspended this semester, just do better than what you've been doing. So these are hyper focused goals that are tailored to the individual students . So it sets a , it's quite a different mentoring , uh, as a goal oriented. Right. And so , uh, so we have for our high kids that are high achievers that uh, they could mail it in and get a 3.9, their goal might be 4.1 plus a community service that uh, the goals are very challenging for all of the students. And it's been really rewarding because if, when I was going to school there, if I was always showing up for class and turn it and not being disruptive and doing my work, you might come up to me and say, Hey, I got eight other fun things to do. Why are you doing that? And I know to be able to turn to you and say, you know, I'm getting $200 for this. It gives me the opportunity for me to go talk to this educationally or economically successful adult. And in some of these kids instances for the first time that someone's talking to them about their grades. And in fact, we have to tell them what a great point is when they come in on the ninth grade and why it's important and how to calculate it. Um, and so oftentimes the goal is improve your grade point. Um, but again, sometimes it's , uh , you know, it's a , it's on the behavioral side of it. Um, but , but, but rich a, a cash incentive, you must've run into a pushback from that. I mean, that's a very unique program and it's been very successful. But tell us about any kind of pushbacks you've had. You know, there's always going to be detractors. Sure . In anything that you do. Um, this was pretty hard to argue against because of the success at the individual student level and at the school level and going in, I was pretty confident we could help individual kids. Um, and uh, I'll give you a couple examples. Um, w try not to use their names, but one young lady , um, she was, her first goal was don't get suspended and I'm looking at her, she's like 89 pounds and okay . I said once again , suspended for well fighting. I was like, who is she fighting? I , she's 89 pounds. So she achieved that goal and she walked across the stage. We now have a banquet instead of a pizza party, full banquet , um, and they get to invite two people to witness them. And so she gets through an entire semester without being suspended. So you must do this twice a year. Then if you see a year, why ? Absolutely. And uh , once and then took it aim at grade point of, I don't remember what it was. I'd say it was 1.8 and then it , then it got raised 2.7, et cetera . Cutting to the chase. She graduated with a 3.6, went on to college. Amazing. Um, we've had , uh, another one of my favorite kids early on, a perfect attendance record and he 0.02 GPA. Oh my goodness. Um, and I asked her , I said , what are you doing? He's a nice kid. He just smile. I don't know. Well , his goal was to graduate with his class and with his mentor. He had to take extra classes, go at night, go through the summer, couldn't miss , uh, and graduated on time. And last spring they brought him back. And , uh , uh, I didn't know he was coming, but he spoke to the kids at the banquet and told his story. And he says, I'm about to graduate from Penn state university. I've got a family. I've got a job, I've got a future. And what really touched me, he said, mr hoppy , I'm going to be the benefactor of this program. So cool. And so you've got scoreboard, as they say on the street. I mean, that's, that's amazing. And, and the other amazing things that I never could have told you, but the culture of the school pivoted from being academically antagonistic to academically enthusiastic. Um, it improved the student and teacher relationships. Uh , the act scores started going up, the scholarship money is going up. Um, and from Wayne, Michigan, we have kids going to the Ivy league, Yale and Harvard. And I can tell you, I didn't even know what the Ivy was when I was going there. I didn't know what it was. I was waiting to ask this question at some point. Would rich, rich help he have been a candidate for the champions? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean he would have benefited greatly from it. Yeah . Who knows. I mean it's hard to your teenage self. Yeah . Right. Thought you know, everything at that time. Um, but yeah, we uh, have had a lot of individual success. I can tell you with outer doubt that we have taken kids that would have been headed for a life of despair or , um , an early grave and , and that are now productive. Uh, we are, you know, also have changed the school to give kids a chance. Um, they're entering a knowledge economy where education's absolutely necessary or a trade. And , and many of our kids do go to trade schools and do well there because they know how to overcome obstacles and they know how to be mentored and how to mentor. Um, and, and it's really great to see these students that have a future. It's really good to see , um, the school doing as well as it is. And you think it's changed the culture not only with the students in the school, but also with the faculty. And then that group as a whole, if you're drawing a Venn diagram, everybody included in that has been lifted. Is that correct? Everybody's in and it's also, it's the community. And you know, when I was growing up, the community was behind you. We had a very robust parks and recreation department. Um, the juvenile justice system was not the adversarial thing. It's become, it was about getting the kid back on track. Um, this is something I just learned recently is that , um, you know, back in the day if two kids got in a fight, okay. A , if you got caught , um, and it had to be on the school grounds, you , you're , you get a five day suspension. Now if you get in a fight, it's not even around the school grounds. They, they send you to court. Oh goodness. Yeah. It's , it gets a Jew . It's like craziness. You can't just shake hands and walk away immediately behind the eight ball. Yeah , yeah, exactly. So , um, we are starting to build that community behind the students and we are growing a donor base. Um, we need more donors and that now's a good time to save folks out there. If you're interested in this, and it's amazing, GoTo champions of wayne.org website and you can learn a lot about that and you can also learn about how YouTube can be a contributor to this. Uh , it's an amazing story. And like I say , they've got scoreboard. What they've been able to do for that student body and the culture of that school is really breathtaking. Um, yeah, that's an amazing program. You should be very proud of that. Well, just trying to help out a little bit as we can and it , uh, I , I'm going to be there as long as we can and as long as we're needed. Um, yeah . Thanks rich. I appreciate you talking about this and I'm sorry to put you on the spot for that, but , um, I just think that's a, that's a heck of a message and , and thanks for, thanks for doing that. And you know, some Bryant , every school

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has graduated a guy like me and that's where I think this could be a model for other schools. Um , but that's one of the keys we need to, there needs to be an alum or someone that cares about kids to sponsor a school. Yeah. Alright . Alright . Thanks a lot and rich, we'll see you next week. Look forward to it. Brian, you have been listening to Richard healthy's common bridge podcast recording and post-production provided by stunt three multimedia. All rights are reserved by Richard helpy . For more information, visit Richard helpy.com .