Les Brown Helps Muncie Housing Authority Reach Youth

Les Brown Teaches Leadership Skills to Muncie Youths

                          Reprinted From The Muncie Times for September 3, 1998

Motivational speaker Les Brown is one of several of the top trainers in the world who are contributing their time, energy, and resources to support the Muncie, Indiana Housing Authority Success Center Partnership. Some of the other participants include Brian Tracy, Mark Victor Hansen and the Success Motivation Institute (SMI).

The Success Center was established with the help of CENTER SPACE and the Ultimate Destiny University for Successful Living. These non-profit organizations are helping Expand the Circle of Success In America through a network of locally designed Centers for Successful Living that provide greater access to some of the best development training resources in the world. Brown, who conducted the Youth Leadership Institute in Muncie, has been working with the founders of CENTER SPACE since 1990 on similar community development and youth empowerment programs.

“Mr. Brown donated his services valued at over $50,000 to provide this life-changing experience for the young people of Delaware County. His company, Les Brown Enterprises, also provided access to the audio video based training programs Les has created which the Success Center Partnership will offer on an ongoing basis” said Betterton, President of CENTER SPACE, which helped the Muncie Housing Authority create the Success Center Partnership.

“In addition to Mr. Brown, Paul J. Meyer, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn and the Strategic Marketing Group are providing some of their best training programs and materials at discount prices and they are donating thousands of dollars of technical assistance to help us adapt for public housing residents these materials that are usually marketed primarily to corporate America. With this level of support from some of the best trainers in the world, we will surely succeed in our mission of helping American’s dis­cover that we are one people, one community, with one economy and one future’ he added.

Les Brown and Mike Williams, his mentor and a training expert, are helping CENTER SPACE design new programs and materials. There will be a number of follow up activities in Muncie. These include providing ongoing leadership development training for the core group who participated in the workshop with Les and ongoing seminars and workshops using video, audio and workbook materials.

Initial funding for the training materials has been provided through a recent grant from the Muncie Delaware County Community Foundation. Grants for additional materials, staff to participate in a training of trainers program and program design are being developed.

One long-range activity being planned is a national conference in Indianapolis to provide opportunities for other housing authorities to gather for two days of seminars, workshops and brainstorming sessions on how to replicate the Success Center Partnership in other communities.

“If things continue to go as well as we expect in Muncie, we would like to take this program to other places” said Brown. “The youth participating in the Institute all completed a Contract With Myself to take action and engage other people and they signed the Seeds of Greatness Pledge.”

“Each one of them will touch another 3 or 4 people, other youth, their families, community leaders and others. They will help involve some other people in lifting their lives and enhancing their sense of self and moving onto some kind of community agenda beyond just what happens to their own lives.”

“They can then take a greater in­terest in what happens in the commun­ity at large. As these young people get together, reach out to engage others, and get involved, there will be an even greater positive impact within the community and perhaps throughout the nation” Brown added. 

 “We established the Success Center Partnership in late 1997 to expand the economic and educational opportun­ities for public housing residents, especially youth, by enhancing access to successful life and work skills training, job readiness training, job placement assistance, and self-employment training to help residents start their own small businesses. “said Benita Smith, Executive Director of the Muncie Housing Authority.

 “Through the Center, the Housing Authority provides innovative edu­cational programs that enable and encourage residents to participate in personal growth, success and achieve­ment programs. It also fosters com­munity mobilization and civic pride initiatives, and activities designed to help residents and resident organiza­tions develop increased abilities for helping direct their lives and influ­ence the institutions that affect them, their families and the community.”

“When we held the first meeting of the Success Center Partnership last November, we invited fifty-five community leaders to attend. We had hoped that at least ten to twelve might attend.” Smith continued.

‘We were pleasantly surprised when over forty individuals attended that meeting and just in the past few months, over 80 people representing over 50 organizations and businesses in every sector of the community have participated.”

Betterton said: "Ms. Benita Smith shared our vision, she appreciated the significance of the Success Center and she responded with the courage and leadership required to bring the vision forth for the benefit of the larger community. We commend Ms. Smith and expect the Muncie Housing Authority to be awarded recognition by HUD and NAHRO” he continued.

The T-shirts for the youth were donated by Life’s An Attitude Wear, a Colleyville, Texas company dedicated to promoting drug free lifestyles for youth. The company, founded on a principle of helping improve the quality of life, is committed to drug education and offering hope to the children of those who did not make a choice to be “drug free.”

 "By wearing our “Official Drug Free and Proud Of It Apparel”, young people let the world know they are drug free and proud of it” said Steve Hakes, President of Life’s An Attitude Wear. “ We are grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the success of Mr. Brown’s Youth Leadership Institute. We share his commitment to youth empowerment and his larger vision of a drug free America.”

 “That’s why our company donates 20% of the profits from the sale of all our products to Life’s An Attitude Scholarship Foundation for children who have, or who have lost, a drug dependent parent” he continued.

“Les Brown is one of the most effective motivational speakers and trainers in the world and his message helps people lift up their vision, Increase their sense of self-esteem and maximize their effectiveness in every area of successful living” said Smith.

“We are so deeply grateful to Mr. Brown for bringing his intensive personal development program here to Muncie to help our young people develop a larger vision of themselves and help them learn how to set goals and achieve their dreams.”  

The Seeds of Greatness Pledge

I do hereby pledge to discover and develop the greatness in me and to plant Seeds of Greatness, in my words as well as my deeds, for myself, for my family and for my community. God, grant me the courage and the wisdom to do what I can, to help make the world a better place.   Copyright 1998 by Les Brown Enterprises

For information on the Success Center Partnership and future training programs based on Les Brown’s materials, contact Charles Betterton of Ultimate Destiny University 760-212-9931.