Wilson Goode won a Purpose Prize in 2006, the Prize’s first year, for engaging tens of thousands of church members as mentors for young people whose parents were behind bars.
A few years later, in 2009, Duncan Campbell won a Purpose Prize for putting caring adults 24/7 in the lives of hundreds of high-risk children from age 5 or 6 until they themselves approach adulthood.
In 2014, Pamela Cantor won a Purpose Prize for using brain science to help thousands of young people cope with the trauma of poverty.
It’s clear that Encore.org’s Purpose Prize winners respond to a keenly felt impulse to help young people. Call it “generativity” if you will, but there are simpler ways to explain why Prize winners – and millions of others in their encore careers – turn their attention to young people.
It’s about what’s most important. All three of the Purpose Prize winners above had defining experiences as young people.
When he was 14, Wilson Goode’s father went to jail for assaulting Goode’s mother. Duncan Campbell was picked up by the police at age 3, wandering the streets in the middle of the night searching for his parents, who were later found in a bar. Pamela Cantor had a turbulent childhood, raised by parents who were often unable to support her emotionally or academically. She found the help she needed from a stranger on a plane who introduced her to a therapist.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, many of us seek others who face challenges like those we faced as young people. As we get older, we are drawn to the work that allows us to use what we know to help those who may be struggling.
It’s about meaning. “I get more out of this than the kids do.” We’ve each heard that hundreds of times from members of Experience Corps, a tutoring and mentoring program we’ve taken turns leading. Corps members, all over 50, work with K-3 students who are struggling to learn to read.
We might argue that the kids get the better end of the deal, but Corps members get a lot. The generosity and kindness they offer comes back to them many times over. And research shows that Experience Corps members are healthier and happier than similar older adults who don’t work with young people.
There’s no doubt that in striving to make the lives of younger generations better, we make our own lives better. It’s not why most people get involved in the first place, but it’s a strong motivator to come back for more.
And it’s about love. Young people may put the purpose in Purpose Prize, but dig down an inch or two and it’s hard to deny that love is where it all starts.
It’s hard to run serious programs and talk about love; it feels squishy and sentimental and it makes a lot of people squirm. But love is the very quality that drives Purpose Prize honorees – and the rest of us – to want the best for others, to make sacrifices for others, to ask for nothing from them in return.
Purpose Prize winners don’t shy away from love. They build on it. They share it. They use it to get children what they need to thrive.
There is no higher purpose for any of us.
Meet The Mentors
Richard Joyner - Returning to the Soil
Duncan Campbell - Changing Lives One Child at a Time
