Servant Leadership
Serving students has always been important to me. After Hurricane Katrina, at 11 years old, I went with my family and my local, Houston, Community of Faith Church, to help students clear the debris from flooded homes and inundated schools. We helped students obtain access to healthy food, clean water and transportation to their new homes above sea level, outside of New Orleans.
12 years later, we were faced with a similar disaster in our own backyard. In the destructive wake of Hurricane Harvey, which wiped away my moms home, taking our favorite clothes and baby photos with it, we launched a campaign to provide free tutoring and laptops to 500 kids who missed over a month of school due to facilities outages and truancy. On major holidays, we would pass out milk cartons full of canned goods, produce, and toys to single moms. And on Sundays, after church, we fed and clothed the homeless, and provided showers and toiletries to hundreds in need.
My family has always been made up of public servants, some choosing the ministry as a vocation, but seldom did it feel reciprocal. It constantly felt one-sided, like we were dutifully helping others. Until I met Pam.
One day, eight years ago, my grandma and I were walking down a path in Mink Meadows in vineyard haven, when we saw a familiar face. A cute dog, a blonde mom with a pep in her step, and her husband, the renowned yachtsman Nat Benjamin, greeted us with a warm smile. We learned that they were off to Pam’s summer camp where she teaches arts and crafts, climate justice, and music to diverse local Martha’s Vineyard island children from their backyard makers studio.
My grandma gleefully accepted the Banjamin’s dinner invitation and became fast friends with Pam. What stood out most about their work at their camp, Sense of Wonder, was their mission and how aligned it was with what I’d spent my whole life doing. Pam provides scholarships to native students on the island and to children of service workers who can’t afford lofty childcare fees. She sends food, supplies, and musical instruments by the boatload to Haiti to help farmers find a better life. She even employs working class island teenagers and provides them with vocational training and leadership skills. Importantly, she does this on equal footing, not in an imbalanced or hierarchical way. Pam sits on the ground, with the kids, she stands next to them during other activities; whether they are painting, singing, dancing, or swimming, the volunteers, the billionaires, and the bus drivers' kids are all the same.
Since then, I’ve spent most of my summers teaching poetry, tutoring math, and leading guided art therapy sessions with students around the island, both at Pam’s Sense of Wonder summer camp in vineyard haven and at the nearby Chilmark Community Center camp upisland which serves a more seasonable group of privileged sportsmen.
Last summer we hosted a workshop with over 200 combined campers to paint large murals about their spirit animals, family dynamics, and life goals. We challenged the kids, while painting, to write poems about the themes from the paintings that stood out to them. To my surprise, preteens evoked wisdom about positive body image, police brutality, climate change, equal rights, identity affirmations, and sustainability. Some of the poems were funny, while others made us cry. To this day, those canvases, and that collection of poetry are the best source of awe and wisdom that I possess.
Year after year, what surprises me most is that while on paper I’m teaching them, in actuality, they are teaching me.
From students In the Wampanoag tribe, the group indigenous to the island and eastern Massachusetts, I’ve learned that diversity is much larger than black and white. I learned that even I, as an inner city black man, a former at-risk youth, can and ought to be an ally for others who struggle and are unheard.
From some of our Caribbean visitors, I’ve learned that there is an entire diaspora of art and music out there to love and learn that speaks to me, and for me, even better than what I have encountered back home.
From toddlers, I’ve learned unconditional love. Teen counselors remind me how courageous we must be to try something new. And when students make a stick figure, a new art piece, or a paper mache rattle snake, I’m reminded that being a beginner is where possibility abounds and most grace is given, and that we should take on new challenges with pride and joy.
The most impactful memories have been: watching students who had a learning disability making sock puppets with as much vigor, skill, and focus as the rest; a student who had trouble sitting still, but who stayed in one spot for 90 minutes while painting an elephant sculpture; a young girl, who was typically shy, but during the performance for parents sang loudly and danced proudly on stage; and one child who seemed to always wear a smile, but in her poems we learned of her trauma and emotional needs.
Not only can we not judge a book by its cover, but if we actually take time to read we can learn more about our peers, and about ourselves than we ever thought possible
Since meeting Pam, I’ve had many ups and downs in life. I’ve made a fortune, lost it, and made it again. I’ve been heartbroken and a heartbreaker. I’ve gone in and out of school three times for various degrees. And I’ve seen 18 countries and 42 states. But no matter what happens, I know I’ll always be on Grove Street, in Vineyard Haven, at the Sense of Wonder camp mid-July, sitting criss-cross applesauce singing the jungle song with my mentors, cocreators, and friends.