It was a conference she organized about the state of American education that ignited a spark in the then 21-year-old Princeton student, Wendy Kopp. She was convinced that a teaching corps of bright, ambitious college graduates from all academic majors could help reduce the disparities in American education. The ember that came to life in Fall of 1988 is now a fire, the national organization Teach for America.

Kopp wrote her senior thesis, the start-up plan (complete with timeline and budget) for the national teacher corps the semester after the conference. She decided that the time was ripe for her idea.

While most of her peers were sending letters and resumes to prospective employers, Kopp sent letters to Perot and other top executives asking for help. After little response, she systematically wrote more letters to handpicked CEOs.

Rex Adams, then vice president of administration at the Mobil Corporation and director of the Mobil Foundation, was impressed by the letter and materials he received from Kopp. Mobil Oil called to congratulate her the day after she graduated. Adams had approved a $26,000 seed grant.

This was no time to celebrate or to relax. Kopp continued to write about 100 letters a week, many of those updating the companies that had declined to help her. "Teach For America became my entire life, but that was perfectly fine with me," she remembers. She and her staff worked around the clock, sleeping alternate nights. By the fall everyone was convinced they could get teachers in the schools by the next year.

The following spring, Kopp got the call she had once been waiting for. "The phone rang in our office, and the person who answered the phone said the call was from Ross Perot. I thought at first she was kidding. Apparently, he had taken an interest in one of the many letters I had sent him and was calling to invite me to meet with him in Dallas the following week to talk about what he could do to help us. The result was a $500,000 check."

By September 1990, when the first 500 teachers had made their ways to their rural and inner-city placements, Kopp had assembled enough small grants (totaling more than $2.5 million) to help with the bills.