Over 10,000 children have participated in The Learn To Earn Program established by Sue Carey. In this program, children are invited to participate in a spelling bee. In a party type atmosphere the children relax, they mix with friends in the system and very often meet up with siblings. They eat, dance and are entertained by magicians, dance studios, and the Jesse White Tumbling team.

In these events, Sue established a bond with the kids by encouraging them to participate. Since most of these children had been treated as useless and worthless, they behaved in the same way. How could Sue reach them? As a volunteer she had only a limited amount of time with them. Like most kids, they really didn't care what another adult had to say. This is when Sue came up with the Learn to Earn Concept. No child in the system receives pocket money. You can imagine how expensive it would be to give pocket money to over 40,000 children in the system in the state of Illinois.

To get the children interested in the Learn to Earn parties, Sue went to dozens of group homes and campuses to explain her contest. "You can earn $200.00 if you come to my party and enter the spelling bee". At first, the children did not believe her, but they were enticed by a party. Eating and dancing to a very hip disc jockey was enough to get the kids to the event but it was not enough to get them to participate. The attitude of the kids was yeah, yeah we've been lied to so many times, there is no way someone is going to give us $200.00 for spelling a few words. But Sue persisted. At the next party, Sue got on the microphone and started to praise the few entrants that she had. One persistent girl earned $95.00. Then she would count out the money in small bills. All of a sudden, the kids started to pay attention and wanted to know how they could get some of this money too.

"This is how you can earn some money," Sue explained. "You can earn $3.00 when you spell a polysyllabic word". You can imagine the looks on the kid's faces when they heard words like "galactopoisis" and "macheavellean". "You can earn another $3.00 if you can give the definition and another $3.00 if you can use the word in a sentence. If you get all of the twenty polysyllabic words correct, you will receive a bonus of $20.00 for a grand total of $200.00. The kids were hooked. After announcing a few more winners and counting out the money in front of everyone at the party, Sue had no trouble filling the Learn to Earn parties to capacity. In fact one year, kids from all over Chicago turned up to participate. We could tell, that a lot of these kids were over the age of 18 and did not belong to a group home or a homeless and abused campus. At this particular party, Sue asked all in attendance to repeat "The Code" with her: "Say no to drugs", "Say no to alcohol", "Say no to smoking","Say no to violence", "Say no to sex before love and marriage", to which all of the guys gave a horendous boo. Undeterred, Sue said anyone who did not repeat the code, could leave. Everyone stayed. The word was now out. Everyone wanted to participate. $200.00 would be more money than most of these kids had ever received. Sue received many letters from teachers saying they had never had a student come and ask for help with their spelling. Group home family educators, would call me and say they had never seen there kids turn off the television and test each other for the Learn to Earn spelling bee. It was a gigantic success. But the fundraising arm behind the Learn to Earn was becoming exhausting. Sue had developed a debilitating disease, Fibromyalgia and Polymyalgia Rhuematica. This extremely painful disease, almost put her in a wheel chair. Through complete bed rest and medication Sue manages her disease. Each Learn to Earn would cost between $15,000.00 and $20,000.00. Most of the money went to the kids, but vendors while they gave Sue as much as they could, still had to be paid. Sue's husband's family absorbed the cost of the facility and supplied her with the help and security. Sue remembers the first Learn to Earn party, with about three hundred attendees, where nobody would take off their coat. There were plenty of coat racks, but no one would part with their coat. Sue asked one of the family educators why the kids were wearing their winter coats inside, with the temperature at 72 degrees. "It is because they are afraid their coats will be stolen". The next Learn to Earn, Sue made sure there were security guards for the coats. Sue was told that many of the kids go to bed with their coats. This way they can be sure they will have their coats for the very cold winters we have in Chicago. Many of the kids would stuff food into their pockets. So we would supply plastic bags for them. Sadly Sue's disease completely incapacitated her. Her Learn to Earn program would have to be shelved. During Sue's confinement, she went back to her passion of music. She started studying piano and voice, and then started to write music. In one of the Learn to Earn parties, Sue had invited the wonderful and innovative ballet company of Homer Bryant. When these extraordinarily talented dancers performed Homer's rap ballet on point, you could of heard a pin drop. It was fascinating to watch kids who were natural rap artists and hip hop dancers, become enthralled with the classical ballet.

At the end of the performance Sue offered free ballet lessons to all who wished to study dance. There was only one little girl interested in the free lessons. Her name was Africa. Little did Sue know that meeting this little girl and giving her ballet lessons would evolve into a full blown musical Africa Plumbridge.