"The stakes are so much higher now," says Kimberly Wright, Booker T.'s Assistant Executive Director. "There's such a widening of the gap between success and failure. In the past kids thought in terms of going to school, getting a job and succeeding through hard work. But now that idea is not so simple. Most of our youth are planning on going to college, so all of our programs incorporate that as part of their core values. It's so much more difficult to move forward now. The children and families need help with the pressure."

By professional and personal experience, Kim is tailor made for the task. Add to that background an ideal temperament for a job that continually pulls her in several directions at once. No matter the issues and pressures at a particular moment - a child at risk in the classroom or on the streets, perhaps, or a family crisis or administrative demands needing immediate attention - Kim takes on whatever she finds on her plate with astonishing equanimity.

"When she arrived 15 years ago, I knew there was something very special about her," says Reverend Ricksy. "Since she has been here we have struggled together and forced each other to grow. I am thoroughly convinced that she is well-equipped to move Booker T. forward."

Reverend Wright is one of those people who, whatever the challenges, just naturally manages to pack it all in. When she was nine, two years after her mother's death, she moved to East Harlem with her aunt and grandmother. After attending East Harlem Performing Arts School, she won a scholarship to the Pomfret School in Connecticut, where she learned firsthand that with the right preparation and backing, children from less than privileged circumstances are more than capable of thriving in "elite" schools (her own son Travis now attends Andover and her daughter Naomi is at Hunter College Elementary School, while Maya is a third grader at Manhattan Country School and Aaron attends the preschool at Booker T.).

Transferring from Pomfret, she joined the first graduating class of Manhattan Center for Math and Science in 1986. Kim holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in sociology and psychology from City College of New York and another B.A. in religious counseling from the New Seminary. In 1996 she was ordained as an interfaith minister. Currently she is pursuing a master's degree in education.

A glance down her resume finds titles like therapist, director, counselor, and manager. She seems to have been about everywhere on the front lines at one time or another, working in hospitals, prisons and schools. She has been a senior alcoholism counselor at Yonkers General Hospital, an HIV counselor at schools, hospitals and family centers, a discharge planner at Montefiore Hospital at Rikers Island, a research consultant at the Columbia University School of Social Work. She was youth director citywide for the Youth Outreach Movement. At present she is on the community advisory board of Mount Sinai Hospital and at Union Settlement's College Readiness Program.

At Booker T., which she joined as a volunteer in 1991, all of this experience comes together in an organization that uses all the resources it can muster to partner with families to raise children in stressful environments. "It was important to bring back the skills and education I had," she says. "I wanted the freedom to bring it all together. Other systems were rigid. Here I felt I had a lot more freedom to be creative and give more attention. Take a kid for a walk. Take a kid home."

As a preschool teacher, director of educational programs and, beginning in 2003, assistant executive director, Kim has helped develop expanded programs to reach all ages, including adults, and extending into such ancillary activities as Booker T.'s highly successful summer camp and Aspen Youth Experience in Colorado.

"When Kim came, there was nothing for junior high school students," says Mary-Ella Holst, a key volunteer at Booker T. since the beginning. "She created a new program for them, and when they went on to high school she created programs geared to the interests of that group." At the same time she took on whatever else needed to be done, including recruiting and training staff and administrative duties. "She has developed into a very effective fundraiser and community presence," Mary-Ella says. "Increasingly she is a recognized leader in East Harlem in all areas that surround education and public health."

For Kim, the family and its ability to cope with the system is a major concern. Many Booker T. students will be the first in their families to attend college, a daunting prospect. "There's been a breakdown in the parental link to the schools," she says. "The education process has become vastly more complicated and confusing to the people we serve. We work with family units to help them stay connected and sort through the challenges they are faced with."

Kim claims that she is able to do it all because of the support and encouragement she draws from her husband Ronald as they work to raise their four children and be a positive influence in the community. Thank you, Kim, for being so much for so many people and for devoting your truly special talents and capacity to meeting the challenges at Booker T.