.......and the greatest of these......
.......is Charity. Just as Geometry is the noblest of sciences, Charity is the noblest of human behaviors. Charity is also most powerful. It can prevent the next sexual abuse of a child, the robbery or shoplifting of a drug-addicted-teenager, his or her enrolment into a gang, the grief, the anger, the anxiety, the hunger and the despair of a little human being, emotionally and physically bruised, neglected, abandoned and helpless.
Charity can, and does, stop all of that.
Most children spend the bulk of their awake-time in school, where one can observe their revealing behaviors. The school environment, from the school bus to the cafeteria, the classroom or the gym, brings to light many signs of the particular affective condition of a child. For the discerning eye of a bus driver, teacher, nurse, janitor or counselor, the school becomes a privileged observation ground, perhaps the only one where, aware and trained adults may notice the precursor signs of a child at risk.
Early identification in the school environment of the signs that a child is in trouble, (or about to be), is what the AMSAP (Arizona Masonic Student Assistance Program) does. AMSAP has trained more than 1,000 educators in our State in teams of four, who, not only can identify the signs but also lay out the roadmap to recovery, healing and rescue of an at risk child. Thus, we can save the most vulnerable and distressed of our children. This is the charity undertaken by the Arizona Masonic Foundation for Children through the Children at Risk program.
The Foundation provides the financial cost of sending core groups of four educators from a school to a three-day seminar. Professional trainers teach them how to identify the signs and build the plans to resolve the child at risk situation. This program has been so successful that a second school is asking to train the whole school staff in a three-day session early August.
Of all the distresses around, that of an endangered child has to be the most intolerable as your generosity will for sure demonstrate and the greatest of these is Charity. In this case, the effect of charity is compounded in its highest form: education.
Jean-Claude Malterre, PM
