February 22, 2017
BLACK
HISTORY
Students far and wide pack the Center for Self Enhancement, Inc.
for a community ‘Day of Service.’
Empowering Youth to Serve
SEI kids give back on day of service
F eliCia s lider
t he P ortland o bserver
Hundreds of youth, male and
female, near and far, collectively
volunteered for the Center for Self
Enhancement, Inc.’s Community
“Day of Service.”
The seeds of SEI, an educa-
tional program serving Portland’s
African American community,
were planted over 35 years ago
and rooted in community service.
The organization uses a cultural-
ly-based curriculum to educate
and empower youth into tomor-
row’s citizens. One recipe to that
successful sauce is to empower
young people to become the liv-
ing legacies to their communities.
Mixed and served by the enlight-
enment of education, marinated
by
with the excitement of social en-
gagement, the students learn as
the late Muhammad Ali so mov-
ingly said, “Service to others is the
rent you pay for your room here
on earth”.
The SEI elementary to high
school student volunteers, along-
side their adult leaders were dis-
patched on Saturday, Feb. 15 to
over 15 neighborhood sites for
community service projects. From
feeding the homeless to the beau-
tification of neighborhood homes,
the SEI kids showed up and
served.
The students, guided by Helen
Keller’s words, “Alone we can
do so little, together we can do
C ontinued on P age 6
MONTH
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