TRAINING & EDUCATION


few years ago, and it made me ask myself what I was doing for others - in particular, what I was doing for people in my own community in need of a helping hand in life. The answer, sadly, was not much. So I decided I had to do something to change that. But what?


D


Months passed, and I struggled to find a cause or an organisation that really moved me to action. I also had a lot of excuses. Then, one night, as I was sitting at the dining room table working on my hiring plan for the


r. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” I came across this quotation a


2013 season, my wife (knowing that I sometimes recruit high school students) asked me whether I had ever tried to recruit grounds crew applicants from the city of Milwaukee schools. I had not, for no reason other than it hadn’t been done before. My wife pressed me on that, and she urged me to think more critically about not only my hiring plan but about my role as a superintendent within the larger community. You see, my wife is a lawyer, so her “encouragement” is more like an interrogation, which meant I wasn’t able to get up from that table until I had good answers to her questions. But, sometimes, that’s what it takes and, thanks to her “encouragement”, the


“Diamonds in the Rough” internship programme at Westmoor Country Club was born.


Connecting with a cause


The concept was simple: Commit several summer positions to high school students who come from disadvantaged circumstances, but who demonstrate an interest in achieving success despite those setbacks. Finding those “diamonds in the rough” was not so simple, however. After developing the idea for the internship programme, I spent weeks (unsuccessfully) canvassing guidance counsellors, writing letters, and trying to make connections that could help me find my first “diamonds in the


PC June/July 2019 141


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