Building Leaders Through Service®

On March 2, I celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday by reading to my kindergarten students at William Scott Elementary School in Atlanta.  It was so fun! One of the books I read was “Oh, the Places You Will Go”. When was the last time you read that book? It really is prescient about life and how things will go—as long as we persevere. The book tells us how everything is going to go our way. How awesome we will become. And we are going to accomplish great things and go far… “Except when you don’t, because sometimes you won’t.” Um, I’m sorry, good doctor. What do you mean sometimes I WON’T. Isn’t this book about me … [Read more...]

I stood there frozen with fear. I was about to go out in front of an audience that was not willing to sit still. They squirmed. They were talking amongst themselves. They were ready for a show and I was going to have to give it to them. Why, oh why did I agree to this? Was I crazy? Did I have a death wish? I was going to have to keep an audience of 25 entertained for up to half an hour. I wasn’t sure I could do it. Did I bring the right materials? Would my voice hold out? Would they like me? “And now,” I heard from inside the room, “boys and girls, please welcome Mr. Kelly!” I walked around the corner to face that … [Read more...]

I have been involved in the Kiwanis Family, an organization dedication to community service for 35 years. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and I joined the Key Club (high school level) at my high school when I was a sophomore because I liked the advisor and I decided that if he thought it was worthwhile, then I wanted to be a part of it. I did some projects and was pretty active, but I didn’t have a clue about the whole Key Club universe. That changed in the spring of my junior year I found out about a convention being held in Green Bay. I thought it would be cool to spend the weekend there, so I signed up I had no idea that there … [Read more...]