He Helps Children Bloom

This is an article that was written about the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation in the Standard Examiner. We were extremely grateful when we saw that it had made its way all the way to the front page. : )


By Nancy Van Valkenburg
Standard-Examiner staff
Fri, 05/13/2011 - 12:01pm


LAYTON -- The young girl stood slumped, her chin low, blond hair hanging to cover her face except for one burning-red cheek as she read her poem to her sixth-grade class at Layton's Lincoln Elementary.

All her 11- and 12-year-old classmates applauded, and the visiting poet told her that her poem was amazing. Looking up to reveal a huge smile, the girl raced to her teacher for a hug.

"She could barely speak, she was so shy," said Rise Timpke, sixth-grade teacher, as the girl returned to her seat to cheer the next reader.

"The first time she read her work and got positive feedback, she beamed. I had never seen her face like that before. You can see what a difference he has made. It's all him."

"He" is Amir Jackson, founder and director of Nurture the Creative Mind, a nonprofit foundation that helps at-risk children increase their self-esteem through self-expression and positive feedback. Jackson is also the foundation's sole worker, and since 2007 has personally led workshops attended by more than 500 youths from Weber, Davis and Salt Lake counties.

This month, Jackson was among 135 people to be named an inaugural Newman Civic Fellow. The award recognizes inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. The Fellows are nominated by university presidents.

"People have told me this work changed their lives," said Jackson, 30, a Weber State University psychology major. "When students read what they've written, it takes me back to a time when I was 12. That's when I realized this has an emotional benefit."

Jackson, a native of Rochester, N.Y., was a young boy when his mother married a man who had no use for a "leftover" child, Jackson said. As Jackson's mother and stepfather had more children, the man's hostility grew and verbal abuse gave way to physical abuse. For his safety, Jackson was sent to live with his birth father's mother and sister.

"I was naturally kind of meandering to a negative place at a time in life when a lot of people get lost," Jackson said. He was misbehaving in class when he wasn't skipping school entirely.

Then, for no particular reason, Jackson put his dark, melancholy feelings into a poem, which he showed to his aunt Pamela.

"She said, 'Amir, this is good. I want you to keep writing, and keep giving me your poems,' " Jackson said. "She bought me a journal. That positivity felt good, and I became addicted to it. It was a defining moment."

Jackson continued writing during four years in the Air Force, including an assignment to Hill Air Force Base. Jackson set his sights on Weber State and a degree he hopes will lead to his working full time for his foundation. He currently divides his time among Nurture the Creative Mind, studies at Weber State, and working for the Davis School District as a special education employee.

Timpke said when she first heard about Jackson's program in 2007, her expectations were low.

"My daughter, Sarah, was in one of the first student groups," she said. "She's a sophomore at Northridge High now, and she has published poetry and gone to district conferences. She has kept every journal she had, and she writes three to five poems a week, just because."

Sarah Timpke, now 15, remains a Jackson booster.

"Amir taught me that no poem and no emotion is wrong, and everything you write is perfect because it came from you," Sarah said. "He is an inspiration. Amir cares about every student and wants them to succeed. I am where I am today, writing-wise, because of him."

Jackson has published a book of poetry and stories by young survivors of abuse. The book, titled, "Yes, I am STILL here," is available through nurturethecreativemind.com.

Back in Timpke's sixth-grade classroom, students continued reading their work about crying themselves to sleep, the beauty of flowers, and even the virtues of Airsoft pellet guns.

A young boy read a poem about mourning a death. A young girl stated, among other observations, that "Tears are only water."

Jackson high-fived his young students, who are applauded both when they stand and when they finish.

"The foundation has given my life purpose," Jackson said. "This is something that I wake up and think about. I know what I should be doing. Everything else is secondary. We don't make money or fatten wallets, but I am continuously happy."

Newman Civic Fellows Award

Encouraging Creative Expression Leads to National Recognition for WSU Student and the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation

May 3, 2011
OGDEN, Utah – Amir Jackson, a Weber State University student who started a nonprofit organization to help at-risk youth, is one of the first individuals nationwide to be recognized as a Newman Civic Fellow by the Boston-based Campus Compact.

Jackson was among 135 Newman Civic Fellows, who received the inaugural award this May. The Newman Civic Fellows Awards recognize inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country. The Fellows are nominated by college and university presidents.

“I’m honored to be selected as a Newman Fellow, but it means so much more in terms of the awareness it brings to my foundation,” Jackson said.

A junior pursuing a degree in psychology, Jackson is the founder and director of the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation (NCM), a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization he started in 2007.

The NCM program uses creative expression as a path to building self-esteem in youth. The inspiration for the program comes from his own experiences growing up in Rochester, N.Y. When he was 12, Jackson left an abusive home situation to live with his grandmother and an aunt who was just a few years older than him.

“I was naturally kind of meandering to a negative place at a time in life when a lot of people get lost,” Jackson said. He wrote about his feelings and emotions in a poem that was “melancholy and had a dark side to it.” Then Jackson shared the poem with his aunt.

She told him it was good and bought him a journal so he could continue to creatively express himself. Jackson recalls his aunt’s encouragement as a defining moment.

“That poetry was my way of getting someone to see me in a positive way,” Jackson said. “That positivity was addicting. It let me know that I was valuable.”

After graduating from high school, Jackson served a four-year stint in the U.S. Air Force, which brought him to Utah. Following his discharge from the service, he wound up volunteering at Lincoln Elementary in Layton, Utah, a Title I school with a diverse population, including students from a lower socioeconomic background.

He started off teaching the program to one class at Lincoln Elementary, encouraging students to abandon their preconceptions and embrace music and poetry.

“I tell youth to open their minds, since most students are opposed to or have negative thoughts about poetry,” Jackson said. “I ask them what would a song be without words. If we took music and took melody and instruments away, what would that leave? Just the words, which are poetry.”

Rather than focus on their differences, Jackson encouraged the youth to use creative expression to find the connections between one another. Based on that initial success, he was asked to come back the next year and teach two classes.

“I started to see the benefit of the program, and I started to think, not about how many we had worked with, but how many we hadn’t,” Jackson said.

That led him to offer the program at treatment centers, women’s shelters, the YWCA and anywhere else he could find at-risk youth. In the past three years Jackson has worked with more than 500 youth from Davis, Salt Lake and Weber counties.

The 30-year-old Layton resident would like to make the program available statewide, and someday, he’d like to take it nationwide.

“I’ve seen what has happened with a minimum amount of people supporting it. Where could it be with even more people and support?” Jackson asked. “I know it’s a program that works both in terms of building self-esteem and academics.”

Jackson points to students who, when assigned to write one or two poems, return to class having written five or six. At the start of the program students take a pretest. The average pass rate for the pretest is 67 percent. By the end of the eight-week program, the collective pass rate for most classes is 83 to 84 percent.

Jackson recently published “Yes, I am STILL here,” a collection of stories and poems written by teenage girls who are survivors of various forms of abuse. The stories show the contrast from young women struggling with their experiences, to their newfound ability to recognize and celebrate their self-worth.

Jackson said that along the way, he’s learned as much from the program as the students he works with.
“The foundation has given my life purpose,” Jackson said. “This is something that I wake up and think about. I know what I should be doing. Everything else is secondary. We don’t make money or fatten wallets, but I am continuously happy. The work itself brings me happiness.”

Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents — representing some 6 million students — who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility. Through the Newman Civic Fellows Awards, college and university presidents acknowledge students with the ability and motivation to create lasting change in our communities. For more information about the Newman Civic Fellows, visit compact.org.

Attachment: High resolution photo of Amir Jackson attached.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
Contact:
Amir Jackson, founder and director, Nurture the Creative Mind
801-499-2371 • amirjackson@nurturethecreativemind.com
Author:
John Kowalewski, director of Media Relations
801-626-7212 • jkowalewski@weber.edu

Remain Focused and True:

We at Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation are extremely passionate about the vision and hope that we one day will be a national organization. Not too long ago we were approached by a well established company, that will remain unnamed, about the possibility of partnering with them. They offered to bring our founder to another state to meet with them. Before he went he emailed them outlining a few request that would need to be addressed before a partnership or a meeting would be possible. Below you will find the exact details that we requested be addressed... We never heard from them again.


Primary Questions
1. Control/security
2. Compensation breakdown
Control/Security
1. Contract outlines
a. Timeline
b. Separation of companies
c. Usage restrictions
A. Timeline
i. 1 year contract
ii. Extension considered after 1 year expiration
B. Separation of companies
i. (unnamed company) and Nurture the Creative Mind are two separate entities
ii. Neither company has nor gains rights to the other
iii. Both companies to be represented when working in partnership
C. Usage restriction
i. Clearly stated and outlined that the material, data, programs, products, lessons, and name of either company is to be used only when working in conjunction with one another
ii. Clearly stated and outlined that the material, data, programs, products, lessons, and name of either company can not be used by the other when one or the other is not bound by contract
iii. Clearly stated and outlined that any audience that partakes in a workshop or presentation does not inherit rights to use data or materials nor teach programs or lessons without the written permission of the company whose material, data, lessons, and/or programs they would like to use
iv. Neither (unnamed company) nor Nurture the Creative Mind can create a program that indirectly or directly competes with the other
2. Compensation breakdown
A. Percentage or flat rate
B. Travel compensation

If you have a dream the only way to remain focused is to continuously refocus. you have to remind yourself why you began and do not be distracted or lured by momentary benefits. most of all DO NOT ALLOW OTHERS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR DESIRE TO SEE YOUR DREAM COME TO FRUITION. They will cheapen and dirty your pure intentions.

Peace and Blessings,
Amir A.H. Jackson
Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation, Founder

We are Accountable to our Supporters/Donors

I believe that a proper amount of transparency and complete accountability is necessary for trust to be established between the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation and our supporters. With that said I have put together a list of NCM Foundation purchases that have been made in the last year that justifies the donations you, the supporters, have so graciously given.

Cost of 8 week program per class-
-Materials- $250x6=$1,500
-Reinforcers- $150x6=$900
-Music education scholarship package (1st place poetry contest winner)- $150x6=$900
- 2nd and 3rd place poetry contest winner (poetry book)- $40x6=$240
-Certificates- $25x6=$150
*8 week program total for 6 classes=$3,690

Marketing and Promotion i.e. fliers, banners etc.- $250

Web Site- $2,500 (donated)
NCM Tees- $350
Book publishing- $1,300
-Printing- $1000
-ISBN- $300
Photographer-$100
*book cost=$2,700
-2 books will be published this year

State registration- $75
Federal registration- $850
*registration total=$925

Camera for documentary- $250
Camcorder for documentary- $400
Mac G5 computer for documentary- $1500
-$900 of cost was deducted NCM Foundation paid $600
*documentary cost=$1,250
-the documentary has not been created yet so this total does not reflect all the costs that will be incurred by the NCM Foundation in the creating of the film.

Total overall cost to run the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation for one year is estimated at $8815.00+
*this does NOT include any personal compensation for any of the members that are affiliated with the Nurture the Creative Mind Foundation

The total amount that has been donated in the past year is estimated to be $5,175.00
-Grants=$1,300
-Private=$3,875

Total amount that the NCM Foundation incurred directly in the last year=$3,640.00

Thank you all very much for your continuing support. The future of the NCM Foundation is bright and this is due to supporters like you. On behalf of the entire NCM family you are much appreciated and I personally am eternally grateful.

Peace and Blessings,
Amir A.H. Jackson, NCM Founder
www.NurturetheCreativeMind.com
"The whole is always
greater and stronger
than its individual parts"

Words from our Supporters and Sponsors

"At Solstice we are very excited about the early results of the program.
Solstice is a residential treatment center for teenage girls. Mr. Jackson works with our girls on expressing themselves through the arts. His time has been very beneficial to our students.
Our students come from a variety of backgrounds and many do not possess healthy ways to handle what life has thrown them. The outlet of poetry is a wonderful way to help them improve. Also, the students who Mr. Jackson has been working with are doing better with their regular course work.
Amir kindly donates his time to students who have not had the easiest of lives and shows them hope. For that I am thankful to him."
Lisé A. K. Palmer
Assistant Academic Director

"We noticed week after week the excitement and interest that the youth expressed concerning the Nurture the Creative Mind program and the things they were learning. In between individual sessions, the youth would put into practice the concepts that they had been learning from the Nurture the Creative Mind Program. youth that had never had any significant interest in poetry were giving it a chance."
Matthew Newbury
Site Coordinator, Stampede Program


"Amir recently came to our club to demonstrate, first hand with our youth, what the Nurture the Creative Mind Program entails through a workshop. The teens were engaged and it was evident that they were receptive towards what Amir was teaching. After the programs display, The Boys and Girls Club is eager and looking forward to establishing a routine schedule to where Amir can come in weekly to execute the full Nurture the Creative Mind Program.
I and the staff at the Midvale Boys and Girls Club believe programs such as this that help and allow teens to express themselves are necessary in developing the minds of our youth. Most of our teens come from broken families with below poverty level income. A lot of them sadly don’t even believe that they have talents or that they will never amount to anything.
We hope that we will be able to have the honor of Amir teaching his full course at our Club. The impact that we foresee could be "The" impact that actually contacts the core of our teens and then leads them to a new and positive shift in their thinking."
David Brooks
Youth Development Professional


"Anyone who works with Amir Jackson knows that writing poetry and expressing himself through music is what allows him to connect so well to the students that he works with. I however, looked at the NCM program and sought to put my own stamp on how I taught the children in my class. First, my talents are in literature and performance and my perspective on writing follows the same lines. In our follow-up meetings, Amir and I discovered the adaptability of the NCM curriculum. The pliability of the program means that students from mid-elementary school grades to disenfranchised youth in treatment programs can all benefit from the same curriculum. The only change is the performance of the packaging."
Stephanie K. Heath, MA
Recruitment Coordinator
Teachers of Tomorrow & FEA-Professional Advisor

Our Newest NCM Member and Program Instructor

Stephanie Kilgore Heath believes in life as a performance. She graduated with a Masters of Arts in English degree from Weber State University in December, 2009. She graduated with a BA in Communication with minors in English Language and Literature and Public Relations in 2005 from Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Stephanie graduated from LSSU at the top of her class as the “Outstanding Communication Graduate.”

Her literary research interests include Literature from the Middle East and Africa, particularly postmodern, performative texts; Shakespearean Studies, and American Literature from the 40s and 50s. Her current research is on the works of Kathy Acker and Diane di Prima. Stephanie enjoys finding the voice of women in texts.

As an undergrad, Stephanie was part of a Competitive Papers Panel for the CSCA National Conference with a paper on how Jane Austen molds rhetorical space with her writing. Stephanie had a paper presented at the 2009 RMMLA Conference titled: The Ceremony of the Conceptual Self in Silko’s Ceremony and Acker’s Blood & Guts in High School. Her performance studies credits include: Eliot Enacted: at the Petit Jean Performance Festival in fall 2004; Things Reveal Themselves, a weaving of mini personal narratives: at the St. Cloud State Performance Festival in spring 2005; Majoring the Minor Characters, a spatial exploration of the women of the Beat Generation: at the Superior Festival where she was the featured solo performer in fall 2009; and Tristram Shandy, Gentleman: at the 10th annual Superior Festival in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan during the fall 2010.

Currently, Stephanie works at Weber State University as the Recruitment Coordinator for the Jerry & Vickie Moyes College of Education where she was awarded the WSU Crystal Crest Friend of Student award in spring 2010. Her future plans include pursuing a Ph.D in Performance Studies, where she can continue her research on victimization narratives, decision making processes of the individual, and adaptation of literature for academic performance. She has been married for almost six years to David Heath and has a four-year old son, Holden and two-year old daughter, Harper Jane.

"We Are..." May 2010 Speech

First I want to address the students that I have spent time with over the last few months. The time spent has never seemed to be enough, but I want each of you to know that in the little time that we have shared I have grown to care about each of you deeply and individually. I want you each to know that you are all very special to me. I speak for your family, our community, our society and the world; we need and are grateful for you. I want to tell you and you to believe that the possibilities in life for you are countless and without boundaries. Remember that it is not always the most intelligent, talented, or the brightest that make it, but often those who persevere. The individuals that meet their obstacles head on, look them in the face, assess and overcame them, those who do not ask the question why me, rather what now?
Now to the parents and audience members, thank you for supporting these students. Understand that you have provided a lantern of light and the smile that you see on the children’s faces and the laughter you hear is a mere shadow of the light that shines within them.
I wanted to take a brief moment to explain what the NCM Foundation is and how the program works. As I was preparing the details of what I would outline I realized that telling you about our established curriculum and our lessons would only give you a surface understanding of what it is we really are about.
We the NCM Foundation are the counter investment to the sometimes negative investment of the media, society, music, and all other forms of negative stimulus up to and including the youth themselves. We do this because we understand that a positive investment in our youth today virtually insures a brighter tomorrow. We do this because proactive positive attention greatly lessons the need for negative attention later. We do this because failing youth is the blame of the society that has failed them. When we ask what has happened to are youth? All we need to do is look toward ourselves and there the answer will be.
We help the student see the value in themselves and the worth of others. We illustrate how regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, and background all are important and should be respected and appreciated as a basic rule and not a luxury. All of this we do with the colorfully distracting packaging of poetry and music. So if you have questions concerning what it is we do; look toward the place where you will find our future, just look toward the children they have tangibly displayed what it is we do and the significance of it.
We are the positive counter investment, this is what we do and we ask you to please help us so we can continue doing what is so very much needed.