First Hand History

"The biggest take away that I have is that most people in the world are good, and most people in the world have, you know, they just want to be safe, and live, and let their kids grow, and have a life. I think that this would knock down a lot of these crazy political walls that we put up between each other."

"We were in The White House and spent an entire day looking for the spot where I would take his pictures, and two days later I met with the president for about an hour and a half."

"I didn’t start running until my freshman year of high school."

"I feel like this is the best way to help people with what I’ve gone through in my life, and to help them learn from the lessons that I learned."

"He said to himself, he said 'I need to do something about this situation'."

"These Palestinian kids... they haven't actually seen the ocean even though it's only 45 minutes away. "

"Education really is more a matter of opportunity so some folks who are very, very bright and might change the world just never get a chance to get that education."

"And it was the first time I could say that I was glad to be alive. And I thought that people should not have to wait for 42 years to be able to say that..."

"Americans look at Africans differently than they look at African-Americans."

"I think so because if you only know people living in poverty as “them,” or the other, or someone who's on the street, or someone who’s begging, or someone like that, and you never have a conversation with them and find out, they’re just like me."

"For me, the exciting thing about Capital IDEA is there was a study that showed that in families who have this Associate’s Degree, their children all went to college, which I think breaks the back of poverty."

"The FBI will be the ones that will come in and help them."

"Organizations like this make sure they don't get left behind."

"We need try to help. We might only be able to help a few people but a few people is better than helping no one."

"I believe, that people are naturally good, and that these kids are good, and that if they could just be pulled into something else, then they wouldn’t fall into gang life."

"...it really helps to make people realize that homelessness is not necessarily just the guy on the corner you see that's at the the stoplight asking for money with a sign."

"I think that everyone deserves a fighting chance in life. And sometimes people aren’t always equipped with the resources necessary on their own, and I’ve always wanted to help make sure that I can help the people who don’t always have the means to help themselves."

"If you are a kid and you don’t have the opportunity to access a lot of academic programs, then it was meaningful. If you are a teacher and you want your salary increased, then it was meaningful."

"And going out there, I started noticing when I was five or six years old, the differences in people. I asked why we couldn’t go into the restaurants or the cafes -- as we called them then -- and they said that it was because they didn’t serve Mexicans. I didn’t know anything about that. ‘What? What? you’re a human being!’"

"The government... definitely should be trying to do something more than they are right now."