Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

Lasting Impact

Lasting Impact

CoGenerate Co-CEO Marc Freedman’s most recent book, How to Live Forever, was published by Hachette/Public Affairs in 2018, generating a lot of great attention. And it’s not over yet! Every week, the New York Times Sunday Opinion section includes a print-only feature...

Check Out Our Signature Event On Cogenerational Activism!

Check Out Our Signature Event On Cogenerational Activism!

On May 22, more than 1,100 people registered to learn more about the important cogenerational work our 2023 Innovation Fellows are doing. These 15 leaders are bringing generations together to solve problems and bridge divides. And each one has a unique and inspiring...

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Haywood Fennell, Sr.

Stanley Jones Clean Slate Project, Inc.
Purpose Prize Fellow 2007

Promoting literacy through positive self-image.

For Haywood Fennell, Sr. 66, the turn-around came a little over 12 years ago. The former Vietnam Era vet had been in and out of jails and prisons, on and off drugs. After his final stay at a VA detox facility Fennell resided in a homeless shelter for 18 months and began to write his first play, which he produced while living at the shelter entitled, “Harlem Renaissance Revisited with a Boston Flavor.’ The play’s cast includes community leaders and elected officials working with youth as a generational cast in a play that talks about not giving up, triumphs over adversity. He has gone on to found the Oscar Micheaux Theater program and has collaborated with other community-based youth theater programs stage his productions and theirs for nine straight years. Haywood is now developing a literacy enhancement pilot project that can be replicated to spark and interest in reading and writing a well as to assist in abating the spiraling literacy plunge. He wrote and self-published “Coota and the Magic Quilt” that has been read by over 3,000 youth and educators and more recently translated into Spanish. He self-published the second book, in a planned Coota Trilogy entitled “Coota and the Challenge”. Both books deal with the growing up experiences and dynamics of a young African American boy in the inner City of Boston.