http://www.sptimes.com/2003/07/13/State/Bread__Knowledge.shtml

Bread & Knowledge

An Orlando community college professor had been helping feed the poor and homeless - until he realized the best way to help them was to teach them. Could a diet of Socrates and Plato help them get off the streets?

ORLANDO - For the better part of six months, Stephen Davis lived on the streets. The man with bushy red hair and intense hazel eyes slept in carports, at churches - anywhere that was dry and safe.

Then he met the Mayonnaise Man, who made an incongruous proposition: Allow us to teach you the works of Socrates and Plato, of Marcus Aurelius and the Dalai Lama, and you will find your way out of poverty.

Davis, 42, was tempted. But he needed a job, not platitudes from long dead philosophers.

The Mayonnaise Man - John Scolaro, a humanities professor at Valencia Community College - kept talking. Finally, Davis decided he needed more than a paycheck.

Two weeks later, he became a charter member of the school's first Clemente Course in the Humanities. It is a project dedicated to the idea that the best way to feed the homeless is to first feed their minds.

Scolaro earned his Mayo Man nickname from his weekly ritual at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando. Every Saturday, as a volunteer for a local group, he slathered mayonnaise on bread for the homeless people who congregated there.

For Scolaro, helping others is a matter of fairness, and he embraces the college's mission to target the underprivileged in Orlando.

"People who have nothing have a lot to say," he said.

So when he heard about the Clemente Course, he was intrigued. He was speeding down Interstate 4 at the time. The radio in his 1996 Isuzu pickup was tuned to National Public Radio. The network was doing a segment on Earl Shorris, who developed the Clemente program in the mid 1990s. Part of the program now is connected with Bard College in New York.

Though unconventional, Shorris' idea was simple: Exposing the poor to the humanities helps them learn responsibility, ethics and values. That helps them think reflectively, which can help them begin the long climb out of poverty.

"It's really a question of people becoming citizens," Shorris said. "I suppose we're working on a democracy."

The program comes with one caveat: It's a humanities course, not therapy. As soon as it tilts toward the latter, its effectiveness is lost.

And there are other reasons why these programs don't always work. Sometimes they run out of money. At the University of South Florida, professors had problems recruiting students, which led to the demise of programs in Tampa and St. Petersburg in 2001, said Robin Jones, a USF instructor who coordinated the projects.

The Clemente Course, though, is going strong, helping homeless and poor students dig themselves out of poverty. Today, there are 39 courses in four countries.

Scolaro loved the idea. He started recruiting fellow professors, meeting with them in a local Denny's restaurant to map out curricula. He approached Valencia Community College president Sandy Shugart, who gave him the go-ahead.

Later, Scolaro identified a funding source: an $11,458 grant from the Florida Humanities Council and matched by the college; the Ripple Effect, a local nonprofit serving the homeless; and Gary Shif, owner of Best Cleaners.

Finally, after a year of planning, Scolaro and the Clemente Course were in business. Now they just needed students.

Davis was one of their first recruits. He was spending his days looking for work in labor pools. Most nights, he slept wherever he could find shelter. When he wasn't looking for work or watching his back, his nose was buried in a book.

How Davis arrived at this point is a complicated tale. During the 1980s, he spent two years in the Navy, where he worked as an electrical technician. After that, he took a variety of jobs, including salesman, computer specialist, actor and cab driver.

He was laid off from many jobs and quit others. The electrical skills he had mastered in the Navy were now obsolete. His last job in Orlando, as a cab driver, ended abruptly after Sept. 11, 2001, when tourism went into a tailspin.

Davis was emotionally and financially broke.

He sought help from Kelly Caruso, founder and president of the Ripple Effect, which helps the poor with clothing and counseling. When Caruso first met Davis, he was a wearing a gray pinstriped suit. Later, she learned the suit was the only clothing he had.

She was helping him put together a resume when she heard about Scolaro's plan for the Clemente Course. Caruso had been studying Davis. He was articulate, took care of himself and espoused sophisticated thoughts.

"I just knew he'd be perfect," Caruso said.

On a September night, she took Davis to a meeting with Scolaro and David Sutton, the humanities professor who would teach the inaugural classes.

It was there that Scolaro stood up and in a booming voice and declared, "Knowledge is power!"

In the Clemente program, the poor are said to be encased in what Shorris calls a "surround of force." These forces include hunger, isolation and racism. When these same people are offered alternatives - such as the arts, philosophy and literature - they discover power in knowledge and seek change.

Scolaro's proclamation revived something in Davis.

Scolaro asked him to write an essay on a book that had affected his life. Scolaro uses essays to determine whether potential students can read and write, the only criteria for entry into the college-level course.

Davis' choice: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

"It gave me some anchoring principles on how to approach something new," Davis said.

He can recite all seven habits by heart, including "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" and "Think win/win." He would rattle them off to himself as he huddled on Orlando's streets, a reminder that someday he would have a home again.

That was enough for Scolaro. Davis was aboard.

Five students in one of two inaugural Clemente Courses met once a week in the Wells' Built Museum of African-American History and Culture. The museum sits just west of Division Avenue, so named because it was once the symbolic dividing line between the city's black and white residents.

On this April evening, a group of students took their seats at the museum under pictures of Zora Neale Hurston, Mary McLeod Bethune and Ray Charles.

For a moment, only the low hum of the air conditioner could be heard. Then Sutton, a soft-spoken man who exudes tranquility, spoke up.

"We were going to pick a favorite passage," he said. "Who would like to lead us?"

It was late in the eight-week course and they were studying The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Davis started to read aloud.

Many of those things that trouble and straiten thee, it is in thy power to cut off, as wholly depending from mere conceit and opinion; and then thou shalt have room enough.

Sutton asked Davis what it meant.

"Sitting and crying about how tough it is just don't cut it," he said.

"What do you think he is suggesting about power?" Sutton asked.

"It means you have freedom and choice," Davis answered.

"How many things are in your power?" Sutton asked.

"A lot," said Cindy, another student in the class. "Like me, I know my limitations."

"When you read this, it's important to read it carefully," Sutton said. "Sometimes when people read many, they think it means all."

Davis said he understood and recited the Serenity Prayer, which asks God for "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Seated at the table with Davis that night was a small group of people who had lost their way in life's current. There was John, an artist with a bushy gray beard, and Michelle, a mother living in transitional housing. There was Cindy, who has cerebral palsy and a thing for Davis, and Kevin, who has trouble focusing on the job.

Each had goals. Cindy wanted a home of her own. John was preparing for a small art exhibit. Davis, it turned out, has always wanted to pursue a bachelor's degree.

In January, he was one of two Clemente students who enrolled in Valencia Community College as a full-time student. His major: music production technology.

Davis received federal financial aid and set up shop at the Belvin Court Motel, a pink motel not far from campus. It had a tiny kitchen and bathroom. A small table sat in the corner. Directly in front of the bed was a dresser with an old color TV on top.

It was a palace compared with living on the street.

Fifteen people attended the first Clemente Course and six, including Davis, completed all its requirements. Davis came back for a second session early in 2003. Eight of the 12 students who enrolled then earned certificates of completion.

The program has since been renamed the Prometheus Project, a salute to the Greek mythological character who steals fire from the gods, gives it to man and teaches him many useful arts and sciences.

The project's founders received another, more lucrative grant from the Florida Humanities Council in June. The $25,000 grant will help underwrite the transformation of the class to a college course for credit.

Davis completed his first semester of college with five A's and one withdrawal. He is enrolled in four courses this summer, for a total of 13 credits. He has moved out of the motel and into a home.

"This program truly reawakened my spirit and gave me the courage to reclaim and defend the person who was being eroded away," Davis said.

The class at the Wells' Built Museum was scheduled to end April 9, but the students' enthusiasm for learning kept the course going for three extra weeks.

During the final class, the group attended a production of William Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona in Lake Eola Park, the place where some of them had received free food and passed the time.

- Times researchers Caryn Baird and Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Monique Fields can be reached at 727 893-8737 or fields@sptimes.com

- Ethics for the New Millennium by Dalai Lama provides modern views on ethics.

- The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a collection of reflective thoughts.

- Essays in Existentialism features various authors and shows students the necessity of accepting responsibility for their choices.

- Riches for the Poor: The Clemente Course in the Humanities by Earl Shorris examines poverty in the United States today and includes sample syllabi for the course.