LIVE UNITED Y’All!

By Jan Sherrell
One of Metro United Way’s goals is that:
By 2018, 87% of our community’s high school students graduate from high school on time. Currently our community’s graduation rate is 73%.

We sometimes refer to it as a BOLD GOAL. We recognize that we alone can not make that change for our community. We are working with partners to explore what out of school time programs are working and what areas they service. We know that food and housing and mental health are just a few of the factors that can also affect the success rate of kids in school. But just naming the goal and proclaiming it is a step toward making it happen.

I’ve experienced this personally –goal setting and proclaiming it.

As a youth it wasn’t emphasized to me that after high school comes college. In fact I didn’t even entertain ideas of college until a high school counselor, looking at my grades and scores encouraged me to think about continuing my education past high school. It was not an expectation in my family to pursue college. I didn’t even dream that dream. We were a middle-class working family with five kids and a stay-at-home mom.

This counselor sparked something in me and I began to consider college. By working from age 16 and with student loans, I was able to attend a local college, but I didn’t have a clear goal or major or career in mind. My motivation and commitment was lacking and I followed the classic “fall in love and get married” path — which has been good and I’m still married 28 years later — but it nagged me that I didn’t complete a degree.

I decided in 2008, that I would complete my degree. I set a goal. It certainly felt like a BOLD GOAL to me. I was 46 years old and pretty rusty at studying and taking tests. My days already seemed full, how was I going to fit college into my life and family budget? Fact is, I wasn’t very thorough in my planning. I didn’t forecast how long or how much money I would be investing. I just knew it was something I always wanted and I went for it.

I’m now 13 hours short of my degree; it is going to happen.

There are many, many youth out there just like I was. They need encouragement. They need to hear that great things are expected of them and that they can do it; it really is a culture thing. Children are being raised without the goal and expectation of completing high school. All families do not emphasize the importance of education..

Maybe it is your role to help a young person set a BOLD GOAL, and to help them reach that goal. It will take the entire community to increase the graduation rate to 87%, but YOU can help that one child recognize the importance of education and completing high school.

Do you have a story to share like mine?  Do you know a young person who had someone make a difference in their success?

General Education, goals, graduation

by Jan Sherrell

It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.
– Tom Brokaw

I’ve recently been thinking about what a burden it would be to win the lottery or to have been born with a silver, diamond studded spoon. No, really! Surely the newness of being really rich would wear off. You would become suspect of the motive of everyone around you. Wouldn’t there come a point when I have bought enough shoes that the thrill of the hunt is gone? Travel would lose its draw over time. Eventually my mind would turn toward others. What good can I now do with all this richness?

To be crazy rich- what would that be like? It could be a real burden. It would be important to me to really accomplish something. I could, of course, form another nonprofit like tons of well-meaning folk do. A nonprofit sporting my name doesn’t really appeal to me, though. Digging in and really determining what could make a difference in my community or even the world (if I go with the super crazy, stupid rich) is not a simple task. I am not a talker either, I’m a doer. So it would be a challenge for me to slow down, study some issues, learn much and develop a strategy. I’d definitely bring in people smarter than me.

Would I have to narrow down into one goal and fund initiatives around it so that you could see and measure a change? Or would I fund lots of interesting, proven initiatives, sharing the wealth across a gamut of needs? See what I mean about the burden it would be? Someone always has an opinion on what you did or did not fund. Being generous can be criticized if it doesn’t agree with someone else’s agenda. Careful what you wish for. Winning that lottery may not be nirvana.

Metro United Way isn’t super crazy rich. But our work is supported by the resources given us. We take time to study the community, to know the issues, to listen to the experts. We are striving toward naming goals, setting strategies and objectives to get us there.

To give money is an easy matter and in any person’s power, but to decide to whom to give and how much and when and for what purpose and how, is neither in every person’s power, nor an easy matter.
–Aristotle

Just because these quotations both point out it is hard work to determine where to put your resources, it shouldn’t stop you from going ahead and giving and trying to change things for the better. Hmm, guess I’d have to really buy a ticket before I need to worry about being super, crazy rich from winning the lottery.

General community issues, decision making, goals, lottery, rich, strategy