Of all the people who do essentially the same thing that I do as a job, Ms. Ella Jenkins is the queen. There would be no Justin Roberts, Laurie Berkner, Dan Zanes--there would likely be no RAFFI without Ms. Jenkins.
But she is not my she-ro just because we do (more-or-less) the same job. I had the opportunity to experience a live "performance" with her at the final Kindiefest conference in 2013, and discovered what thousands upon thousands of children and adults knew before me: Ms. Jenkins's greatest gift is not her voice or her musicianship, but herself. She is present with her audience in a way that demands that the members of the audience be present in that moment with her! I have found this presence to be very rare, and so necessary in a world where we are so often somewhere else: on our phones, on social media, in our own minds worrying and planning for the future. I can promise you that no one at Kindiefest was on their smart phones while Ms. Ella Jenkins was on the stage.
I aspire to be more like her in my own endeavors. She is a treasure! She is a she-ro.
Ella Jenkins on Wikipedia
(Have a real-life hero or she-ro to nominate for this blog? Let me know at misslynn [at] misslynn [dot] com!)
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