“Mr. Finley, will you please step out of the room so we can go into executive session for your review?” I had known this young man since he was nine years old, and now he was chairing my evaluation committee. After college he had been the first Epiphany graduate to join our teaching fellows program which helps train the next generation of urban educators and provides fellows with room, board, health insurance, educational debt relief, and often a free master’s degree. Now he was a successful entrepreneur, happily married with a baby on the way, and serving on our Board of Trustees. I, meanwhile, was no longer the twenty-six-year-old founding head of a tuition-free Episcopal school surviving by the skin of its teeth. Of the many lessons I’ve learned over the years, the importance of perseverance and trust in the work of social justice has been one of the most critical.
Read More »
