Oral Lee Brown recounts in her autobiography, “The Promise” (with co-author, Caille Miller) that in December 1987, she drove up to a liquor store in East Oakland to get a soft drink and some peanuts. A small girl came up to Ms. Brown and asked her for a quarter.

Ms. Brown asked the little girl if she was hungry and the little girl nodded. So Ms. Brown took the girl into the liquor store and told the little girl to get what she wanted to eat. The child got a loaf of bread, a pack of baloney and some cheese. When she went up to the counter, the little girl look up at Ms. Brown-and at that point, Ms. Brown realized that the little girl was trying to feed her entire family.

As the little girl ran out of the store, Ms. Brown tried to find out why she wasn’t in school and where was the girl’s mother. But the girl ran off with the food and forever out of Ms. Brown’s life.

Haunted by the image of a little girl trying to feed her family, Ms. Brown called up the Oakland School District-and found out that the child’s school would probably be Brookfield Elementary. So she went to the school several times to find the little girl. And then after one visit, she announced to the principal, Ms. Peeks, “I am going to adopt an entire class.”

Ms. Peeks was taken back at first. But after some discussion, the principal found out that Ms. Brown meant that she wanted to put aside money to have all of the children go to college. So Ms. Peeks choose a first grade class of 23 lucky students with an outstanding teacher, Mrs. Waters.

With that, Ms. Brown not only saved $10,000 a year for their college education (creating a foundation-the Oral Lee Brown Foundation-to do so), but she also coordinated field trips, tri-weekly tutoring sessions, college tours, bimonthly meetings with the students and visits to each student’s middle and high school.

In the end, all twenty-three students graduated (including one who graduated a semester late due to losing a semester after giving birth to a daughter). Nineteen went to college-including several out-of-state colleges.

Who is this remarkable woman? She is a realtor with her own reality business in East Oakland. She was born in Mississippi and spent her junior high and high school years in New York, helping to raise her nieces and nephews. She then moved to Oakland and became a single mother of three children.

When she was in forties, her employer, Federal Express, offered to pay for her tutition in order for her to qualify for a promotion. So she went to night classes and graduated after five years. And when she made the offer to “adopt” 23 students, she was making $45,000 a year.

Oral Lee Brown shows that all of us can make a difference in this world-even if we don’t have the resources of Don Fisher or Warren Hellman. All we need is the focus and passion of believing in the students and their potential.

Ms. Brown and her foundation has now adopted three groups of 20 students-one group of kindergarteners, another group of 6th grade and the last group of 9th grade. To help Ms. Brown in her work, her foundation’s website is www.oralleebrownfoundation.com.