SHOWing Kanye their ingenuity
LEARNING | Local student group challenges peers to improve, lands West as star in prize concert
Never underestimate the power of positive thinking, sheer determination -- and when all else fails, just asking.
Cliched life lessons perhaps, but exactly the ones learned by 15 students from Highland Park and New Trier high schools.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
Where: Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State
Tickets: $49.50-$275 (800-745-3000; ticketmaster.com)
Led by founding member David Abrams, a sophomore at Highland Park High, they formed a student coalition with a central idea: tie improved grades and attendance to the incentive of a free concert.
The group, Students Helping Our World (SHOW), has partnered with the Kayne West Foundation to present two performances by West on Thursday. An 8:30 p.m. benefit concert is open to the public (and will be taped to air July 25 on the Fuse cable channel), but a sound check earlier in the day is free to select high school students who met criteria set up by Chicago Public Schools and SHOW.
Abrams says he got the idea back in December when his mom was driving him to school.
"My mom had on NPR, and they were doing a story on a student at Robeson High who didn't like to go to school and was failing a lot of classes because he just didn't try. As an incentive to improve his grades, his mom offered a ticket to a Lil Wayne concert," Abrams recalls. "I told my mom I thought a free concert might be a good incentive for other students."
His mom, Wendy Abrams, just happened to be the founder of the Cool Globes project, the public art initiative that placed more than 120 larger-than-life globes throughout the city in 2007 to draw attention to environmental issues. The project subsequently has gone national with displays set this year for both Houston and Los Angeles.
"I had contacts in the mayor's office and with Chicago Public Schools, but the kids did all the meetings themselves," she says.
The CPS identified six schools that reflected a diverse population demographic and cover the north, south and west sides of the city for the rollout of SHOW's program: Harlan, Manley, Mather, Robeson, Senn and Von Steuben. Abrams says his group hopes to expand the program next year.
To qualify for tickets, students had to meet several criteria put together by CPS with input from the students in SHOW. They had to maintain at least a B average or show improved grades in all classes, with no F's, and there also are goals tied into attendance, tardiness and misconduct.
With the program in place, the group set out to land talent. "We sent out a lot of letters," Abrams says.
His mom says the group kept expectations to a minimum. "The kids all thought they might have to go with a local performer for the first year," she says. One of the group's letters landed on the desk of lawyers representing Kanye West.
"I guess they were impressed with what I wrote because they forwarded it on to the Kanye West Foundation," David says, referring to the foundation West set up with his mother, the late Chicago educator Dr. Donda West.
West declined interview requests, but Joseph Collins, CEO of his foundation, said its goals were a good match with the SHOW project.
"The fact that a young person chose to lead this effort and challenge his peers to do better in school is amazing and exactly what Dr. West envisioned when she and Kanye created this foundation," Collins said in a statement. "I believe these efforts directly support the vision Dr. West had for the organization and for America's children. I see this concert as the seed that will allow us to 'fulfill a mother's dream.' "
The Grammy winner's 30-minute sound check will be exclusively for students from the six schools who met the criteria of the program. He will then spend an hour answering questions.
Abrams today meets the rapper for the first time when West will be on "The View" to talk about the concert. Abrams and his mom will be in the audience.
"I'm happy the kids are getting such positive reinforcement for giving back," Wendy Abrams says. "Some of the kids have told me their involvement has felt better than anything else they have ever achieved. When it feels this good to do good, there's the chance they'll do things like this for the rest of their lives."