Breyanaah Parker, a student ambassador at Jennings High School, dipped her paintbrush in the red paint and got to work on bringing to life a big “J” on a collective school art project.
Parker looked over at her art partner – Bill McLaughlin, a vice president of information technology at Express Scripts – and asked how many prescriptions Express Scripts makes.
“We service about one-third of all the people in the United States,” McLaughlin told her. “We make about 1.2 billion prescriptions a year.”
McLaughlin was working on painting in the “Your future starts here” words, as the two chatted about their lives. At about 25 other tables, similar conversations were happening between high-school students and Express Scripts corporate executives as they painted “empowerment” ceiling tiles that will be hung in the high school.
“The overall goal is to empower students to have employers who see them, get to know them and they get to know the company and have some mentors in the organization,” said Art McCoy, superintendent of Jennings School District.
On September 30, Timothy Wentworth, CEO and president of Express Scripts, and 150 of the company’s vice presidents and executives participated in beautification projects at the district. They split up in three groups of 50 to work with students on art projects at Jennings Junior High and Northview Elementary School as well.
Express Scripts is a major supporter the new Jennings Pharmacy Tech Program, which will be taught by St. Louis College of Pharmacy faculty. Eventually, the students will serve as apprentices during their junior and senior years as pharmacy-technicians at Walgreens or at Express Scripts itself, said McCoy.
“Here in St. Louis, we were identified as a Promise Zone based off the unemployment and underemployment of our adults,” McCoy said. “It was important to me to design a career program that would engage our corporations to hire our youth and adults.”
In order for companies to want to hire students, they have to be equipped, he said.
“We are on a mission to make sure every young person has an industry-recognized credential before high school graduation that will get them a living wage and job, as well as have college credits,” McCoy said.
In total, the district offers opportunities to gain these credentials in seven different career paths, including certified nursing assistant, information technology and construction.
Before the beautification projects began, Express Scripts leaders presented McCoy with a check for $25,000 to fund college-visit trips to Morehouse and Spelman colleges. Jennings in turn gave the company three paintings made by students. Wentworth spoke to the packed high-school auditorium about being the CEO of Express Scripts and his path to get there. He also talked about his high-school experience and facing peer pressure.
“I truly think that I was lucky,” Wentworth said. “I was lucky because I had those good influences at a time when those bad ones weren’t so in my face that I felt like I had to follow them.”
After his speech, McCoy gave Wentworth a big hug and told the students, “Tim is one of the most genuine, caring and fun CEOs I’ve ever met. We did actually meet on the dance floor. I saw that a white man can dance.”
The students erupted in laughter and applause.
