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>> This primal, guttural chant
explodes to the throats of 250 boys and girls signaling the start of the camp day.
But I have no idea what's going on.
I've arrived at camp a week late and I feel lost.
Can you imagine that scared seven year old trembling in the back row?
That's me.
Terrified, I won't belong.
Scared, I won't make friends.
That was 20 years ago, and
I was about to learn the lesson I want to share with you all now.
The profound impact an invested adult can have on a child's life.
For me, that adult was Tarzan Team.
Back in the summer of 2002 Tarzan Team was the coolest guy around.
He wore Ray Bans and a visor before the retro look was in.
He was bigger, faster and stronger than everyone I can't.
In Tarzan Team set out to be my friend.
Me, that skinny seven-year-old,
had more anxiety in his gut than he could handle himself.
I remember the way that Tarzan Team made me feel, feel like I belonged.
He would say things like, whoa, Mario sure knows how to make a mud ball.
You all should be asking him how he does it Mario that's a fantastic dream catcher.
We'll have to hang it in our secret for these small moments of investment
turned a terrifying experience into a summer of social and emotional growth.
Tarzan Team invested in me, and it transformed my life.
Summer Camp has the ability to inspire transformative change on people's lives,
full stop.
The National Academy of Sciences highlights summer camp benefits on child
safety, social, emotional well-being, physical and mental health, and
academic learning.
An ongoing longitudinal study by psychologist David Yeager indicates
that a mere one week at camp can increase college attendance rates by 18%.
And that's one week.
Imagine the power of a full summer.
So the stats tell us we do good by our children when we send them to camp with
a power of an invested adult works wonders.
But that's not the only thing I'm here to talk about with you today.
This is picture of me and Tarzan Team, back in that fabled summer of 2002.
Beyond the smiles in the mud stained shirts,
what stands out to me, the general lack of ethnic diversity.
My memory may be fuzzy, but
I'm willing to bet that Team was the only this summer at camp.
I can say across my 16 years at camp, Team was the only black counselor in my group.
The American Camp Association states that 70% of summer campers are white Americans.
And this under represents the true figure at private for profit sleep-away camps.
Across the entire camping landscape,
only 5% of camps cater to a majority impoverished population.
It pains me to think about what it was like for Tarzan Team to run around tying
shoes and applying band aids in a place where no one looks like he did.
I won't presume to speak for him.
But I do know what it's like to be the only.
Across three years majoring consulting in 12 different projects, not once did
I have a black or Latinx supervisor, team manager, or managing partner.
When I looked upwards, craving a mentor that looked like me,
I struggled to find a business leader I can connect with.
And now I'm here at the GSB and I'm struck by this duality.
On one hand we learned so much about the benefits of diversity.
Research right here at Stanford tells us that diverse groups are 87%
better at making decisions.
A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group says that diverse management
teams lead their companies to 19% higher revenues.
Better at making money, better at making decision and yet I still see so
much room for improvement.
Black and Latin X individuals attend college 10 to 20% less than their
white peers.
Even with a degree,
Black college graduates earn 21% less than their White classmates.
And this is exacerbated at the top.
Were racially diverse executives, executives of any non-white American
background hold only 16% of total C suite positions.
I want to see this change.
Creating and upholding diverse spaces matters to me, because I dream of
seeing people in color in positions of power, feeling they belong.
Expanding access to summer camp can be a big part of this change.
I know because for me, Camp made all the difference.
Camp allowed me to beat back that Gremlin in my head screeching,
you're an imposter, you don't belong.
I remember back in middle school when I was dealing with bullying,
Camp was the haven in which I could prove to myself that I could be liked,
I could make friends I could respond to adversity.
Simply Put Camp and its leaders like Tarzy Team showed me I belonged.
And if I could go from outsider to belonging at camp I sure as hell could do
it in the real world.
So we know we do well by our children when we send them to Camp and
we know we do well by society when we promote in uphold diverse spaces.
How do we bring these two truths together?
I could deliver a whole other talk about what society can do to diversify
the Camp space.
From directing tax dollars to camp initiatives, to increasing education for
minority parents about the benefits of Camp.
and even yet
I can deliver this whole other talk about the Camp industry could do to diversify.
From targeting more diverse camp directors to increasing diversity, equity,
inclusion training for its staff.
But I want to focus on the here and now.
I want to focus on what you in this room can do to expand access to
these crucially important youth development programs.
First, send your kids to Camp and do so thoughtfully.
You may not have kids now, but if in when you do send them out there to play in
the woods, make mud balls and stampede through the wilderness.
If that's not their thing, that's okay.
Send them to Basketball Camp, Theater Camp, Science Camp, Woodworking Camp,
imaginary skateboarding with a parrot on your shoulder camp.
The options are really endless.
But choose that camp deliberately.
Select a camp that upholds a diverse environment.
Vote with your wallet and demonstrate to camp owners and
directors across the nation.
That providing an enriching experience for
children of all backgrounds is a business imperative.
And secondly, donate to scholarship programs.
Just about every camp organization has its own campership program focused on
expanding opportunity of access.
The truth is, however, many of these slots go on applied for because minority
families either incorrectly believe they can't afford camp or
are afraid to send their children away.
Certain nonprofit organizations are addressing this issue by
directly matching inner city families with residential summer camp programs.
Via donations from individuals like you and me, organizations such as
the Guardsmen, Camp Piles, and Project Mori, pay full camp tuition, so
that financial burdens don't bar children from these life-changing programmes.
I'll confess,
diversifying the camp space won't fix all the achievement gaps I mentioned earlier.
Even so, I can assert with conviction that a summer at camp
can fundamentally shift the life trajectory of a child,
It can show them they belong, it did for me.
I started this talk by telling you about Tarzan Team in
the power of an invested adult.
Now I'm asking you to be that invested adult.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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