LIVE UNITED Y’All!

By: Kerri Cokeley

In an effort to help reduce America’s high school dropout rates, America’s Promise Alliance is supporting more than 100 state and local Dropout Prevention Summits across the country.

On September 25^th I attended the first Indiana Dropout Prevention Leadership Summit. I participated in this meeting with a group of education professionals and concerned citizens from Clark County, a local workgroup convened by Landon Samuels of State Farm. There were hundreds of folks in attendance at this statewide conference, including some from Floyd and Harrison Counties as well.

The luncheon keynote speaker was Bill Milliken. Bill has been a tireless advocate for disenfranchised youth and one of the foremost pioneers in the movement to connect schools with community resources to help troubled students graduate and succeed in life. In 1977, he and others developed a model organization, now known as Communities In Schools.

The Communities In Schools model believes that each child needs and deserves the “5 Basics:”

1. A one-on-one relationship with a caring adult

2. A safe place to learn and grow

3. A healthy start and a healthy future

4. A marketable skill to use upon graduation

5. A chance to give back to peers and community

Each of these “5 Basics” makes so much sense to me as I think back to my childhood and what helped me get to where I am today. When thinking about how to help the students falling through the cracks of society today, it’s hard to keep from getting overwhelmed.

Something that Bill Milliken said as he was speaking resonated with me deeply, “America doesn’t have a youth problem. America has an adult problem.” I couldn’t agree more.

This leaves me with a question for you: What are we, the adults, going to do to help make sure the young ones in our life, and in our community, have the support they need to be successful?

P.S. The Evening News did a great job of capturing the essence of the statewide event (click here to see the article.)

Advocacy, Education, General America's Promise, Education, graduation rates, State Farm

Hi ya’ll. I hope this message finds you well. I’m writing this entry in anticipation of my trip to the National Conference on Family Literacy. All of my enthusiasm for this trip isn’t just because it’s held in Orlando, FL and I leave tomorrow for warm, sunny days. I’m most excited because of all the great keynote speakers and informational sessions they have planned. (I know, just by admitting that, it only further confirms my nerdiness…)

All that aside, family literacy is a very serious issue. Have you ever thought about how hard it must be for a child raised in a household with very low literacy levels to be successful in school? And if a child isn’t successful in school, research shows that the odds are unlikely for them to be successful in adulthood. Then the cycle continues.

Over the past three years, I have worked to broaden my definition of literacy. When I used to hear that word I thought it only meant someone’s ability to read and write. But, that’s not the only definition. It also means being knowledgeable on a particular subject.

So, let me reconsider the previous example with this new definition.

• Imagine how hard it must be for a child raised in a household with low financial literacy levels to grow up and spend their money wisely.
• Imagine how hard it must be for a child raised in a household with low social literacy levels to interact well with their peers in school and later in the workplace.
• Imagine how hard it must be for a child raised in a household with very low parenting literacy levels to grow up to be the kind of mommy or daddy their child deserves.

Imagine if every family could recognize an area where they could build their literacy levels and had the courage to ask for help - and when they did - their community provided the support they needed. This is exactly what we are working to do in Southern Indiana with our new Legacy of Literacy initiative.

This project is in its very early stages of planning, but we are very hopeful of the positive change it can help create. Would you like to be a part of helping make this change? We would love to have you.

Photo credit: ::: Billie / PartsnPieces :::

Education 4community2, Education, functional literacy, Legacy of Literacy, National Center for Family Literacy, Southern Indiana

If you were to close your eyes and think about your ideal place to live, what would come to mind?  For some of us, it would be a cottage on a beach where it was warm all year long.  For others, it would be living in the mountains or on several acres out in the country.  But let’s think about living here in the Louisville area.  We’ve already got a lot of things that make living here good: museums and the arts, sports, beautiful parks, entertainment, top-notch health care, plenty of shopping and restaurants, the Ohio River, colleges and universities, and the Derby, to name a few. 

But let’s dare to dream even bigger.  What other things would we want in our ideal metropolitan area?  How about if every child was wanted and loved, kept safe, and was given every chance to develop his/her mind and talents?  What if marriages were strong and loving and couples received the coaching and guidance they needed to make their marriage healthy and vibrant?  What if every older adult was loved and given the resources he/she needed to remain as independent as possible for as long as possible?  And when that was no longer possible, that they would be assured of having people around them who cared well for them and helped them to maintain their dignity.

Wouldn’t it be great to live in a community where people who have physical and mental disabilities were accepted as equals and where their human worth would be valued?  Imagine a place where animals were cared for and wouldn’t live their lives chained or caged or neglected or abused.  How about living in a place where people took seriously their responsibility to tread lightly on the earth so that future generations would have a healthy and beautiful place to live?  Would you like to live in a place where everyone who wanted to further their education had the ability to do so?  What if we lived in a place where everyone who wanted a job had one, and that job paid a living wage so that everyone could afford decent housing and could provide a reasonable standard of living for themselves and their family?

To quote John Lennon, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”  Together, we can bring this city and the surrounding area closer to our ideal vision.  But in order to build a place that better suits the needs of everyone, we need everyone’s voice and everyone’s help.  So speak up.  What does your ideal community look like?

Advocacy, Education, Health, Income Advocacy, Community, Education, Health, Income, Louisville, opportunity

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Howard Mason. I am the Director of Community Building at Metro United Way. In many ways, I may have the best job in the community. But that’s going to be our secret for now.

My work is about finding, connecting and supporting the people and organizations that are working to advance the common good in this community. I mean the innovators, social entrepreneurs, neighborhood heroes—the ones who are close to both the problems and the solutions.

Metro United Way can’t do everything, but we can play a key role as a leader and a partner to those who are trying to do the right things—the community leaders and social entrepreneurs who are trying to solve the 21st century problems with 21st century solutions. If you yearn to change the world, then I am writing for you.

By the way, I yearn to change the world too, so I’m writing for us.

Let’s face it: if doing the same things we have always done in the same ways were all we needed to change the world, I probably wouldn’t be writing this today. We might already live in the most vital caring community in America.

So let us also face the fact that we are going to have to try new things, go about our efforts in new ways if we are going to get the new results we seek. I want to help us look at new ways of doing things.

Our conversation will not be about getting somebody else involved or what some other group needs to do. It is now about what each of us can do. The time has come.

In this blog I’m going to be writing about us—who we are, what we do, where we get our strength, what it takes to be successful.

I hope you will read and comment and add your experience and perspective.

Education, Health, Income, Volunteering Change the World, Community, Education, Health, Income, Innovator, Social Entrepreneur, Volunteer