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I had the pleasure of sitting down and really getting to hear Mark Federman, the principle of East Side Community High School, speak passionately about education, the arts, his school, and most importantly near to his heart, his students. This guy is the real deal. He's been living out of a tent on the street in front of his school for over a week now to raise awareness for his school. All because of a promise that he made to his kids as a mentor and leader that they all look up to and admire. KOHL's is giving away ten million dollars that will be split up between 20 schools, each getting 500,000 and Mark really wants this for his. It's a voting game. Unfortunately they're on the low end of the technology spectrum(due to current funding) which makes promoting this cause all that more of an uphill battle against many of the private schools currently holding the top 20 positions. It would be really unfortunate to see all of these awards only go to privately funded schools and not deserving Title 1 schools like East Side High that really are desperately in need of a boost like this to change the lives of the students there permanently.

Mark and I spoke for about a half an hour, but it didn't take more than a few minutes to see the energy in Mark's eyes even though he'd only had three hours of sleep the night before. He introduced me to their current arts program and all of the things they currently pull off with a non-existing budget, including a full gallery that they do student exhibitions in for the community to help raise money for the arts. In fact, pretty much anything that is outside of the lean and stripped down "norm" has to be personally funded out of his own pocket and other teachers at the school. We both conversed on our passion for a solid balance of technology with the arts in the classroom. This money would help fund a new mac lab where his students can access the equipment they need for a proper introduction to the graphic arts, computer illustration, and video production. In addition to this he has a pretty extensive list filled with after school programming, some fine tuning, and just making the overall experience a better one for his students.



So here's whats up. I need you to vote for very a deserving school that really needs our help and has lit up many faces on a street nearby where I live. In exchange I'm going to give you my work for free. This will not cost you a penny (I'm covering shipping costs too). Only about 30 seconds of your time will be needed for the voting. Mark has literally been camping out and living in front of the school for the past week in order to raise awareness for the needs of his school and the students that walk it's hallways. His ambition and determination has inspired me. He's out there doing exactly what every person in a leadership role should be doing in their community. He's lit a flame in everyone around him, brought together the community with his students, faculty, and parents and given them all hope and a dream worth coming together for. Bottom line, it's always near and dear t