Piney Woods School at www.benji.com

Dear Friends,

Back in late 1988, my wife, Carolyn, had a massive stroke. Brain surgery saved her life. As I sat with her in ICU, I made a promise to God that if he decided to give her back to us, among other things, I would get right with my tithing. The good news is that it took a year and a half of grueling physical therapy, but Carolyn completely recovered. The following nine years, before she died unexpectedly from unrelated causes, were absolutely the best years of our lives. After the stroke, as she became lucid enough to understand, I told her of my promise to God, and asked her where she would like the tithing to go. Without hesitation, she told me of a little school she had read about in Mississippi Magazine (she was from Mississippi; we met at Ole Miss) called The Piney Woods School, an historically black boarding school that was doing some pretty phenomenal things with at-risk middle and upper-school students.

She asked me to check it out.I drove over from Dallas and dropped in for a visit. It was an amazing experience. More than 80% of the student body came from single-parent, poverty-level homes, many from the inner cities around the country, yet the school was instilling hope and educating these kids so well that 95% to 100% of its graduating class were going off to college every year. This is still true today, with many of the graduates attending some of the finest universities in the country, like Princeton, Smith, Williams, Harvard, Northwestern, Amherst, Emory, and Spellman... most on full scholarship and/or financial aid. And once there, they're doing terrific, with many going on to graduate school.

Carolyn and I got involved immediately and formed the Joe and Carolyn Camp Miracle Fund for Entrance and Completion of College, providing financial aid and helping kids who apply to this special program to maximize their Piney Woods experience and, later, their college experience. It's been the most rewarding thing we've ever done. The first group of kids on the program decided we weren't very good with names, and re-titled themselves simply The Camp Kids. And virtually every one has become like family to us.

The school's mission statement begins: The Piney Woods School recognizes that throughout the United States there are students, especially black students, who have the capability to make their lives extraordinary through excellence in education and development of moral and ethical attitudes but do not have the opportunity to do so for financial or other reasons.The statement goes on to commit Piney Woods to provide that excellence in education and development and to become a role model for other schools throughout the country. The Piney Woods motto is: Changing America... one student at a time. And they're truly doing it.

It's a place that'll simply knock your socks off. If you're a student who wants to maximize your educational career, Piney Woods could be for you, but only if you heed this caveat from the school's president. He says, "Send me a kid with an attitude and I'll send him home. Send me a kid with desire and I'll send him or her to college!" If that's you, visit the school's web site by clicking here: The Piney Woods School.

If you're a teacher searching for a teaching experience wherein you're paid more in emotional rewards than perhaps money, a few years at Piney Woods is guaranteed to put the passion back in your job.If you're an administrator wondering how to capture the success of a school like Piney Woods, come see and study the school for yourself.

If you're just someone who cares about the condition of our world and believe as I do that the only honest-to-God way to really solve our biggest problems in the long term is through education of our young people, I encourage you to drop in on the Piney Woods web site (http://www.pineywoods.org), and, perhaps, get involved. It costs more than $29,000 per year to educate one student at Piney Woods and most of the students pay less than half of the roughly $10,000 tuition. Many can afford nothing. And the school is completely private, depending almost entirely on donations.

Dr. Charles Beady, the school's president believes that all children can excel if their sense of futility can be overcome, and they are given the opportunity to learn in a focused, disciplined community of caring teachers. The living proof that he's right is this amazing little school nestled in the piney woods of south Mississippi. I encourage you to get to know Piney Woods. It just might be the best thing you ever did... for someone else... and for yourself.

My very best regards,

Joe Camp

Click here (or the hyperlinks above) to go to the Piney Woods web site: The Piney Woods Web Site

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