CONTRIBUTION

Contribution

Juan Cortes, Team LA, T2,Q3

Juan Cortes loves having kids win in life and in the process, discovering they are the leaders of the future. Juan designed his Game in the World, Contribution, inside of the Team Management and Leadership Program, so that the children of Los Angeles can enter art and writing contests at the community level and get the experience of winning.

The possibility of his game is being of service, powerful, loving and generous, the outcome is people experiencing love, abundance, and contribution with each other as one extraordinary family of the world.

Juan’s wife and team leader, Lisa Marie Valle supported her art students from her inner school East Los Angeles Skill Center and other schools in the Los Angeles area to enter art contests. In one instance, she had her students enter the an Asian-American Culture art contest and the great thing was that the majority of the students entering were of Hispanic descent and two of them, who painted Japanese-Americans in the interment camps during World War II in California, won first and second places. Those students discovered in the process that you don’t have to be Asian to win an Asian-American contest because they are the world. The winners were honored by meeting with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, tickets to Disneyland and a scholarship.

One student from Lisa’s school wrote a piece about his mother entitled 3:00 am. in which he acknowledged his mother, a single parent, for waking up so early to take care of his needs and make sure that he was prepared for his day. The miracle was that his mother saw her commitment to him acknowledged at the ceremony where he won a prize. All the students get to see that just entering a contest is being a winner and that life is always about playing.

What Juan learned from his Game how important a team is in the playing of a game, and he has discovered that he actually has the power to create something amazing in the world.

Written by Judi Romaine, Edited by Minling Chuang

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TMLP Times Contributors:

Dave Baldwin

Jeff Bonar

Valri Castleman

Minling Chuang

Judi Romaine

Cecilia Rossiter

Steve Schapiro

Djuna Wojton

Wendy Zalles