Greater Milwaukee Men

From DesignMil's website, photo of a designer last year doing volunteer work for a local non-profit I was able to participate on the receiving end last year of a great collaborative in Milwaukee, a community event that supports non-profits in the area but is far bigger than that. DesignMil is collaborative event that provides free design services to local non-profits. Participation in the event provides many other benefits to the community for both the non-profit and the designers. This year, on October 20, the community will get together to make it better for all.

In an Esquire blog post, the esteemed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presents 20 Things Boys Can Do To Become Men . Unlike what you may expect from today's athletes, his post is a well-thought out and truly valid list. I recommend it highly for anyone trying to be a Great Man, though points for what boys can and should do it is what we all should do. If you have boys yourself share it with them. You can read his entire post with all 20 points and his enlightened discussion of them, but seeing as they all support our values  in the code: A Great Man man strives to be Compassionate, Decisive, Enterprising, and Sincere, I thought I would list them here under the value I think they help reinforce.

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday edition highlights UW basketball player and senior Rob Wilson for his work off the court as much or more so than on it. The full article is here . Wilson has been an intern at a Madison Boys & Girls Club this semester and plans to leave UW with a degree in human ecology and leadership studies. As part of his internship he puts in 15 hours each week, but when time permits he tries to put in as much time as a volunteer doing whatever he can to help out children with single parents, something he knows about dealing with from personal experience. While volunteering, he spends time with the kids playing basketball of course but also reading with them, even helping out on the computer.

On a week when there have been more typically bad morality plays in professional sports, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did a piece on an inspiring former athlete - Larry Hisle of the Milwaukee Brewers . The story talks about how Hisle works with disadvantaged males of all ages as part of his work for the Brewers as the manager of youth outreach, a paid position but a vocation he is called do and would do regardless. Entering the Holiday season of the US Thanksgiving Day and various religious special days, it seems that professional sports wants to drag us down and keep us in the negativity of the state of the economy and other political issues. Between the dangerous and vindictive actions on the race track, allegations of abuse in college football, and the NBA lockout, sports don;t seem so inspiring. But Hisle and the his former and current employer the Milwaukee Brewers give some hope. First kudos to the Brewers organization for having the outreach program and especially for ...