What is hope? Is it a feeling? A force? Or could it be something as simple as the picture of a bright future?  From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire, Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem. Though located near the more affluent areas of New York City, East Harlem is notorious for its violent crime rates and poor education.

Mr. Lang was asked to speak to 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would surely drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him.

Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. “Stay in school, and I’ll help pay the college tuition for every one of you.” In that moment, their lives changed. For the first time they had HOPE. One student said, “I had something to look forward to. It was a golden feeling.” Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school!

For these young students, the promise of an education provided a picture of a new outcome for their lives! Instead of facing the harsh reality that they would spend their lives on the NYC streets, struggling like most of their friends, they now had opportunity to break their financial and educational barriers and to rise to a new future!  http://bit.ly/1cufu9O