“No” Can Be a Good Thing

Terri Turner, chosen from a from a pool of more than 1,500 candidates nominated through the White House web site, was selected as a Champion of Change for the positive impact she is making in her community.

I came from a family with a strong work ethic.  My Daddy used to tell me that if I wasn’t giving 100%, that I was cheating someone - I learned very quickly that, most of all, I was cheating myself if I wasn’t giving my all, and then some, to those around me.  So I was always doing “more,” giving “more,” trying to be “more.”  It was quite natural that I ended up in a community service field.  For the past 18 years, I have worked for City and County governments as a Planner, Floodplain Manager and Hazard Mitigation Specialist (among a lot of other hats that I just quite naturally wear with my present position as Augusta, Georgia’s Development Administrator).

Freedom through Mobility

Joel Berman, chosen from a from a pool of more than 1,500 candidates nominated through the White House web site, was selected as a Champion of Change for the positive impact he is making in his community.

When I started Adaptive Adventures in 1999, I did it for reasons that were personal to me. In 1983, I lost my leg in a rail accident in Chicago, Illinois. I had always been an active individual and I knew I would need to fight to stay active and find the freedom offered through sports that I had experienced throughout my life.

Searching for such opportunities made me realize that there were very few organizations that catered to providing sporting opportunities to the physically disabled.  Hence, in 1999, I co-founded Adaptive Adventures, whose mission is to identify, promote, and provide progressive sports and recreation opportunities to improve the quality of life for children, adults, and veterans with physical disabilities. Our agency is driven by its belief in ‘freedom through mobility’ and core values of affordability, independence, and leadership. By adapting equipment and training to the specific abilities of individual participants, people of all abilities have the opportunity to partake in our all season sports programs on all levels.

Teaching Global Citizenship

Jenny Buccos, chosen from a from a pool of more than 1,500 candidates nominated through the White House web site, was selected as a Champion of Change for the positive impact she is making in her community.

It is an honor to be recognized as a White House Champion of Change for my work with ProjectExplorer.org promoting cross-cultural understanding. Over the last decade, I have been an advocate for global citizenship. I believe that global awareness is a critical 21st century skill, yet this topic is nearly absent from the national dialogue on education.

My global education began in 2000, while travelling in Asia on assignment for an investment bank. I began to notice that most people have a wide variety of preconceived notions about other countries and cultures, particularly here in America where our culture, news, and discussions can be so inwardly focused. Experiencing a new country and culture first-hand and having my own beliefs challenged was a real awakening for me, and I wanted share that experience with as many people as possible. This experience and the months after 9/11 became the catalysts for founding ProjectExplorer.org.  Beginning in the winter of 2001, I spent several months observing the people around me become increasingly afraid of the world outside of America. As I listened to these conversations, I began to think about how developing a global awareness from a young age could change students’ interest in education by making what they learn in school more relevant, and could someday improve international relations by raising a generation of truly global citizens.