HOPE (Helping Others Persevere & Excel) Week has been designed by the Yankees to bring to light five remarkable stories, which are intended to inspire individuals into action in their own communities.

Each day from Monday through July 24, all 25 Yankees players will divide into groups and will be enlisted to reach out to an individual, family or organization worthy of recognition and support.

While all daily celebrations will culminate at Yankee Stadium, outreach is also being planned to take place away from the ballpark, allowing the Yankees to personally connect with individuals while bringing attention to causes and organizations.

According to the Yankees, HOPE Week will consist of the following stories and events:

Monday: A newly married couple saddened by the sight of abandoned schoolyards in their New York City neighborhood decided to become mentors to at-risk young people in their area. Their work over the years has had a profound effect on the neighborhood as children who began in their program have become mentors themselves. Players will surprise the neighborhood children by dropping in for lunch at the couple’s household. Players will bring food and sporting goods, speak with everyone there and invite the couple and the children to the Stadium for the game that evening.

Tuesday: A child with cerebral palsy who is confined to a wheelchair and unable to communicate through conventional speech became an inspiration to his Little League teammates by dressing in uniform, sitting in the dugout with them and giving high-fives as necessary. This season, the team won the league championship. Additionally, his father is the inventor of revolutionary equipment that allows non-verbal individuals to communicate in new ways. Yankees players will meet the child and his best friends for lunch at a local eatery. Afterwards, everyone will go to the local Little League field to meet the child’s teammates and other children with cerebral palsy. Yankees players will then give a talk about baseball and sportsmanship before holding a brief baseball skills clinic. The child and his teammates will attend the Yankees game that evening.

Wednesday: An Army veteran in upstate New York has lost use of his arms and legs due to ALS. His wife is a pillar of their local community. At a party with his family and friends this weekend, he will be shown a videotaped message from a Yankees player, inviting him to fulfill his dream of watching a game at Yankee Stadium with his young son. Included in the invitation are his wife and son. What none of them know is that Yankees players will have an added surprise for them when they arrive at the Stadium. They will receive a private Stadium tour from Yankees players following the game.

Thursday, July 23: Xeroderma Pigmentosum is a rare (approximately 150 cases in the U.S. and 1,000 worldwide) genetic disorder that prevents sufferers from going outdoors in daylight. UV light, including florescent lighting, causes them severe burns and eventually skin and eye cancer. Campers (and their families) from a special camp that caters to their unique needs will travel to Yankee Stadium, arriving after sunset to watch the remainder of the evening’s game from a party suite. Immediately after the last pitch, the field will be transformed into a massive open-air carnival for the families, who will be joined by Yankees players and their families. The fun will continue until approximately 4 a.m. ET, when the XP families must re-board their buses in order to make it back to camp before daybreak.

Friday, July 24: With the help of a major not-for-profit human services network, two young men with developmental disabilities have integrated into the workforce at a company in New York City. Yankees players will surprise them at work and take part in their day, helping them to complete their daily assignments. A lunchtime party with the visiting players will celebrate the two individuals as well as the company that had the courage to hire them. At the conclusion of the party, the two young men will be transported to Yankee Stadium, where they will return the favor by assisting Yankees staff with their day-job expertise, before taking in the evening’s game.

The Yankees have encouraged those inspired by the HOPE Week stories to look to New York City’s NYC Service (www.nyc.gov/service) and President Barack Obama’s United We Serve (www.serve.gov), which promote and find outlets for volunteerism.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such….

…. is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of….

…large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare,

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton     ###

According to Wikipedia, an entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. The term is originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to the type of personality who is willing to take upon herself or himself a new venture or enterprise and accepts full responsibility for the outcome. Jean-Baptiste Say, a French economist is believed to have coined the word “entrepreneur” first in about 1800. He said an entrepreneur is “one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor, acting as intermediatory between capital and labour.”

Background

Entrepreneurship is often difficult and tricky, resulting in many new ventures failing. The word entrepreneur is often synonymous with founder. Most commonly, the term entrepreneur applies to someone who creates value by offering a product or service, by carving out a niche in the market that may not exist currently. Entrepreneurs tend to identify a market opportunity and exploit it by organizing their resources effectively to accomplish an outcome that changes existing interactions within a given sector. Effective entrepreneurs may influence investors, suppliers, and partners through an elevator pitch about their idea.

Observers see them as being willing to accept a high level of personal, professional or financial risk to pursue opportunity.

Business entrepreneurs are viewed as fundamentally important in the capitalistic society. Some distinguish business entrepreneurs as either “political entrepreneurs” or “market entrepreneurs,” while social entrepreneurs’ principal objectives include the creation of a net social benefit.[citation needed]
[edit] As a leader

Scholar Robert. B. Reich considers leadership, management ability, and team-building as essential qualities of an entrepreneur. This concept has its origins in the work of Richard Cantillon in his Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (1755) and Jean-Baptiste Say (1803 or 1834) in his Treatise on Political Economy.

A more generally held theory is that entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, from the combination of opportunities and people well-positioned to take advantage of them. An entrepreneur may perceive that they are among the few to recognize or be able to solve a problem. In this view, one studies on one side the distribution of information available to would-be entrepreneurs (see Austrian School economics) and on the other, how environmental factors (access to capital, competition, etc.), change the rate of a society’s production of entrepreneurs.

A prominent theorist of the Austrian School in this regard is Joseph Schumpeter, who saw the entrepreneur as innovators and popularized the uses of the phrase creative destruction to describe his view of the role of entrepreneurs in changing business norms. Creative destruction dealt with the changes entrepreneurial activity makes every time a new process, product or company enters the market.
[edit] Research into entrepreneurs

Schumpeter argues that the entrepreneur is an innovator, one that introduces new technologies into the workplace or market, increasing efficiency, productivity or generating new products or services (Deakins and Freel 2009). Other academics such as Say, Casson and Cantillon, say the entrepreneur is an organiser of factors or production that acts as a catalyst for economic change (Deakins and Freel, 2009). Shackle argues that the entrepreneur is a highly creative individual that imagines new solutions providing new opportunities for reward (Deakins and Freel, 2009). These are a few definitions from the entrepreneurship field but show the complexity and lack of cohesion between academic research (Gartner, 2001). Most research focuses on the traits of the entrepreneur. Cope (2001) argues that although certain entrepreneurial traits are required the entrepreneurs behaviour are dynamic and influenced by environmental factors.

Shane and VenKataraman (2000) argue the entrepreneur is solely concerned with opportunity recognition and exploitation; however, the opportunity that is recognised depends on the type of entrepreneur which Ucbasaran et al (2001) argue there are many different types of dependant on their business and personal circumstances.
[edit] Social Entrepreneur

Social entrepreneurs act within a market aiming to create social value through the improvement of goods and services offered to the community. Their main aim is to help offer a better service improving the community as a whole and are predominately run as non profit schemes. To support this point Zahra et al (2009: 519) said that “social entrepreneurs make significant and diverse contributions to their communities and societies, adopting business models to offer creative solutions to complex and persistent social problems”. Examples of socially run businesses include the NHS and also the ‘Love One Water’ drinks brand.

Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to orthodox Islam in 1975. In 1967, Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. military based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the war in Vietnam. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ali was well known for his fighting style, which he described as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. He was involved in several historic boxing matches, including three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He has only 5 losses (4 decisions and 1 TKO by retirement from the bout) and 0 draws in his career, while amassing 56 Wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions)

Keb’ Mo’ started his musical career playing the steel drums and upright bass in a calypso band. He moved on to play in a variety of blues and backup bands throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He first started recording in the early 1970s with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach through an R&B group. Creach hired him when Moore was just twenty-one years old; Moore appeared on four of Creach’s albums: Filthy!, Playing My Fiddle for You, I’m the Fiddle Man and Rock Father.

Around that time Moore was also a staff writer for A&M Records, and arranged demos for Almo – Irving music. Keb’ Mo’s early debut, Rainmaker, was released on Chocolate City Records, a subsidiary of Casablanca Records, in 1980. He was further immersed in the blues with his long stint in the Whodunit Band, headed by Bobby “Blue” Bland producer Monk Higgins. Moore jammed with Albert Collins and Big Joe Turner and emerged as an inheritor of a guarded tradition and as a genuine original.