No one was ever going to catch this Alpha-Male teary-eyed. Our Live-In School just ended last week, and a performance by one of our students at the final banquet left me, and most others, blubbering and snot-nosed.
It was M.’s final testament to his 80 days in this Madawaska paradise also filled with thorns. He wrote a song and Sippy played the guitar accompaniment. M. sang his praises and had us in stitches with his teasing mockery of Boundless. He mesmerized the rest of us into this exquisite happy-sad revelry. And he couldn’t complete the song. He collapsed in a pool of emotion and Sippy had to finish the last stanza. The Ranch erupted in ovation, and M. was forever changed. He belonged to all of us, and we to him.
And this place felt Boundless.
The students’ victories were many. Their Math and English test scores increased an average of 28 points compared to their historical marks. They learned to prepare food like short-order chefs. They added six-packs to their abdomens and hoisted 250lb tires. They became laundry aficionados. They did their chores without complaint (well, mostly without complaint). Their lungs grew pink from clean air and nary a puff of smoke. And they earned credits with great tenacity and efficiency, astounding themselves with what they could accomplish academically.
But it wasn’t easy. Every paradise has a catch.
These kids traded their freedom for focus. They gave up their poisons and interrupted their social lives back home. This required determination and sacrifice. This was no piece of cake.
In exchange, they became engaged with their own learning. The experienced the virtue of thinking about others needs before their own. They forged lifelong friendships, leaving me green with envy as to how effortless this can be for a teenager.
As the staff team at Boundless are about to take a badly needed holiday break, we count our blessings. My best wishes to you all for a happy and healthy 2014.
Steven Gottlieb’s Bio
Back in 1983, when Steven had hair and muscle tone; he founded Boundless out of his second-story apartment in Toronto, launching food buckets off his balcony into the bus. He has been the Executive Director ever since, beguiling staff and students alike with his grandpa like missives and his refusal to abide by the very bureaucracy he created. Steven won the National Non-Profit Leadership Award in 2009 from the EJLB Foundation. He moonlights as a parent counsellor and is currently the President of the Kiwanis Club of Toronto Foundation. He is married to his first love, and they have three kids together.
