The Heart of Education
Stories of Students, Teachers, and Love
Are You A Hope Mender?
Hurting children exist in far too many places...
The hurt creates empty dreams in broken-hearted children who...
Sometimes hurt others
sometimes hurt themselves
sometimes become angry and fight for survival inside themselves.
These children need...
Hope Menders
to help mend their broken hope,
broken heart,
broken dreams.
Are you a hope mender?
Will you become a hope mender?
Hope Is What Dreams Are Made Of
Just as students in this book are looking for love, often in hopeless places, and just as they find inspiration and purpose as these stories unfold, you, too, can find hope you never knew and purpose to inspire your way. This book is about becoming more than you are, reaching for more than you dreamed, and empowering others to become the change the world so desperately longs for. Join us as we explore the incredible story of Hope Menders: A Journey to the Heart of Education.
From the book...
There are some who are so hurt by poverty that they become broken-spirited empty shells, while others turn the hurt into anger that appears tough and shows in their faces like scars of the battle. Then, there are the few who determine to rise like a phoenix to soar through the pain and in spite of it. These are the stories of some of the unforgettable children.
"Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it." - Rick Bragg
Following the roads less traveled to little communities hidden away among kudzu, tall oaks, and poverty, I met and worked with many devoted hope menders. We worked together to mend hope.
"There are all kinds of prisons. Some people are held prisoner by walls and time, some by their own sadness." - Rick Bragg, Somebody Told Me
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." - Ralph Waldo Emerson