Dear Friends,
After ten years of
having the privilege and honor of co-founding
Scenarios USA and serving as Co-Executive
Director with Maura Minsky, I have decided it
is time to move on. The organization is
thriving and I am certain it will continue to
grow in the powerful hands of Maura, who will
serve as the sole Executive Director. I have
accepted an offer to lead Sustain Dane, an
emerging environmental organization whose
mission is to develop a model sustainable
county in Dane County, which is home to the
city of Madison, Wisconsin.
I am
deeply grateful for the lessons I have
learned from this amazing journey and all of
the people who contributed to the creation of
Scenarios USA. Maura and I started Scenarios
in 1999 in coalition with a group of
teachers, filmmakers and community
organizations, with nothing but our ideas in
hand.
We were able to convince
director Doug Liman and producer Avram Ludwig
to make our first movie with the New York
City students. Doug and Avram donated their
time, their houses and their hearts to make
our first New York City film. Along the way,
we managed to get small grants that gave us
just enough to pay for insurance and flights
and begged and borrowed everything else. We
are indebted to Joe Spiedel and the Hewlett
Foundation and Sally Fisher and the Colin
Higgins Fund for believing and investing in
us from the beginning.
We've had
the opportunity to work with an incredible
board of directors and staff, who are not
only brilliant and dedicated, but know how to
laugh at themselves and have fun. The board
of directors, headed for many years by
Lucinda Treat, currently General Counsel of
Madison Square Garden, has done everything
necessary to help Scenarios grow - from
stuffing envelopes to raising money.
I am thankful for my partner and
friend, fellow Co-Founder and Co-Executive
Director Maura Minsky. Maura is an
extraordinary thinker, with the rare
combination of qualities of knowing how to
create a vision and turn it into reality.
She has a contagious sense of humor and a
silver tongue. She knows how to sit beside
someone and find the best in them and how to
get in front of the team to tenaciously lead
the way.
It's hard to believe that
ten years have gone by and we now have a
$1,000,000 budget, eight employees, an annual
gala fundraiser and major investments from
the Ford Foundation, Gund Foundation and
several others. Our films are used
throughout the Los Angeles Unified School
District, New York City and in many places
in-between. We put the analysis of gender at
the center of our writing program, with
amazing results. Our comprehensive
evaluation confirms that our work is making a
contribution to the fields of education and
public health and, as a result, our program
has been cited as a model for sex education,
innovative school re-design and school
engagement.
In partnership with
you and others, I feel lucky to have achieved
more than we ever could have imagined. And
this is just the beginning of what is
possible for Scenarios USA. I can clearly
see the impact it will have over time,
offering young people around the country the
opportunity to engage on the issues that
impact their lives, reflect on their choices
and make their voices heard.
With
gratitude,
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