Making a Difference

About the Book

"This book tells about his life both before and after the accident and also offers a lot of successful ideas to people wanting to help others. It describes how he ran a church youth group that he did for twenty-five years and gives specific ideas for running youth retreats and mission projects. It describes being involved in starting a youth drop-in center that in spite of many ups and downs ended up being very successful. In fact forty years later many of the youth are quick to let people know it saved their lives. The book provides lots of detail on things that worked and ways to handle the difficult problems that come up."

About the Author

Fred Rosene who grew up in Newton Massachusetts during the 30’s and 40’s was in a tobogganing accident part way through his second year in college. He was left a paraplegic and had to face the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He went on to earn both a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Math from MIT. He immediately landed a job with Sylvania Electronics that was bought a couple of years later by General Telephone and became GTE. He worked at GTE for thirty-four years before retiring. During his working years he coached his church’s high school basketball team, ran their youth group and taught Sunday School. After working for about fourteen years he changed to part time (twenty-four hours a week ) in order to help run a teen drop in center he had helped start. He became director when the director suddenly quit and successfully ran the program for about 5 years. After that he went back to full time until he was 60. He retired to Florida in 1990 and before he knew it he was volunteering at a grade school full time. He has received the Florida State senior volunteer of the year and the Molina Health Care Community Champion Award. He is presently starting his twenty first year of volunteering. A fiftieth birthday surprise party of one of the youth involved in the drop in center inspired him to write this autobiography.