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Denzel kicks off youth to 'Be Great'

Advocacy program helps students stay in school

By Ann Geracimos (Contact) | Wednesday, October 1, 2008

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Denzel Washington can turn even grown men into gaping fanboys, as evidenced at the recent press conference held to announce the Boys & Girls Clubs of America's new Be Great campaign, an ambitious advocacy program on behalf of underserved American youth.

About the only person at the press launch in the District's Hyatt Regency who appeared unfazed was Shonnetta Henry of Denver, a student at the University of New Mexico whose title is BGCA's National Youth of the Year. (At age 18, Miss Henry already has business cards that read "For speaking requests, please contact ...")

Mr. Washington, a proud alumnus of the nonprofit organization and its public spokesman for 15 years, is involved in a number of philanthropic causes, including seeding with his own money a campaign to raise nearly $1 million to save a sports program at a high school in Mount Vernon, N.Y., the town where he grew up. And he didn't even graduate from that particular school.

His personal mission stems from the oft-proclaimed need to find ways of keeping children involved and in school, as emphasized by BGCA Chief Executive Officer Roxanne Spillett, reminding her audience at the introductory event that "of every two incoming students in high school, only one is going to graduate."

Mr. Washington - to be seen next with John Travolta in a remake of "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" - downplays his own efforts, saying, "Celebrity is just one aspect. Time is another, money another. We all try to reach out and do what we can."

He praises the organization as a place where his life was "changed dramatically," although he grew up in a stable household with a pentecostal preacher father, at least until age 14, when his parents divorced. His mother then sent him to a private all-boys high school away from home; his career began while he was a student at Fordham University.

Asked how his life was changed by the local club in his early years, he says, "It just mainly gave me and thousands of other kids in my neighborhood a place to go off the streets to learn, to grow, to get better."

The day in the club that he remembers best? "The day I walked in," he says. "I'm telling you the truth. It's just a place where you are allowed to be a kid, to have fun, to interact with other people, to compete. ... [T]o escape - I can't imagine in today's world some of the pressures of this world, you know."

Famously a family man, the father of four children who has been married to the same woman since 1983, Mr. Washington exudes charisma almost without trying - making him a charity's ideal spokesperson on two counts.

"We want to have some fun [with the campaign]," he remarks, "and also empower and encourage people to take an interest in the serious issues affecting young people ... to enable young people to discover and reach their potential and allow them to dream and believe they can achieve whatever they set their minds to. I know it happened to me and to many other alumni who had similar experiences."

In proof of this, in 2006 he authored "A Hand to Guide Me," an essay collection that details how many well-known Americans have profited from having a childhood mentor while growing up.

The Be Great campaign (Click here to visit Web site.) entails youth surveys, billboard and video images, and public service announcements by prominent participants, including Gen. Wesley Clark, Shaquille O'Neal and Martin Sheen. It is supported largely by pro bono contributions from corporations such as the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. BGCA is a network of about 4,300 neighborhood-based facilities that are estimated to have served about 30 million American youths since its founding in 1906.