Before Deborah Kenny quit her job in 2001 to start a school for underprivileged youth in Harlem, her friends staged an intervention. They listed their concerns: She would run out of money, she’d lose her house, and, worst of all, as a new widow she wouldn’t be able to adequately provide for her three young children. Kenny did not budge. “I felt like I would die if I didn’t start this school,” she says. Kenny found herself sketching out the plans for her new education program during meetings, the way others might doodle.
