This is a fascinating story. It is impressive how a businessman dedicated himself to doing for others, to helping those less fortunate than him, and has made a big difference. Imagine a corporate executive dedicating himself to helping people in prison. Well, imagine anyone doing it. It being a businessman, to my mind, gives lie to ideological statements such as that business people don't have a heart, are cold, calculating, bottom-line-focused automatons.
"Mark Goldsmith didn't expect to go to jail when he volunteered to be "principal for a day" at a New York City school. But after requesting a "tough school," he was assigned to Horizon Academy, a high school for inmates ages 18 to 24 at Rikers Island prison."
How many liberals would have done this? About as many conservatives, I'd say.
"Mr. Goldsmith, a former executive at Revlon and Shiseido, was ushered through locked gates to the prison's classrooms. Standing in front of his new class, he looked at the young students and saw in them signs of his own difficult youth."
Nothing has an impact as identifying with your audience. Mr. Goldsmith wanted to do more than he thought he could accomplish one day a year, so he started his own organization to help inmates: Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO).
"Mr. Goldsmith and 14 other current or retired executives who volunteer at GOSO, based in Harlem, plus a paid staff of six, are working to counter the familiar story of prisoners getting released without skills, jobs, money or a place to live, and then resorting to crime only to get locked up again."
""A lot of programs for prisoners are run by former prisoners or social workers, but Mark brings a business perspective, he's a role model of success and he tells kids who have never thought they can be successful that they're entitled to that," says Anthony Tassi, executive director of adult education in the mayor's office, New York."
Nothing quite like pragmatism. And dedication.
"Mr. Goldsmith and Richard Block, the retired CEO of a 2,000-employee entertainment- packaging company, spend several days a week at Rikers, counseling inmates studying for their high-school equivalency diplomas."
Several days a week is commitment.
Mr. Block wants inmates to know there are hundreds of different jobs and they don't have to choose between crime and menial labor.
And the apotheosis:
"If they'd get to know some of these kids better, they'd know they're not hopeless, he says. "A lot of them are as smart and talented as anyone you meet in business, they just haven't had anyone to help them."
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