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Several weeks ago, my son who
is seven years old got up and dressed at 4 a.m. While this is a
typical rising time for me, I was shocked to see him so alert. I
read him a story about vision, shared with him my expectation for
his day and put him back to bed.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>In that moment, I imagined how many children in our region don’t have a male mentor, a warm bed or love in their homes. This was my story growing up, and it is what partly defines my outlook for this region.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>I have a younger brother who was the victim of multiple gunshots on the streets of St. Louis when he was 17. He survived it, but that’s about it. Living life just to survive is not living. He has lived in a nursing home as a quadriplegic for more than a decade. It is a really tough situation for him, and I struggle with his outcome to this day.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>There are many great organizations in the St. Louis community doing noble work, but our kids are still dying. Black children are disproportionately represented in almost every social ill in our country. Black boys particularly have all but given up. If you don’t believe me, talk to the people who are on the frontlines working to get our young people to dream about college.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>The problem as I see it for our region is we lack a unified vision in general, but more specifically we lack vision for our children.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>If you spend time in the most challenging rural or urban areas of this region, you learn quickly that we all have similar ambitions. Most people that I encounter don’t strive to be poor. Even those who are seemingly unmotivated have within them a kernel, a seed of desire for something greater.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>What many lack is imagination and vision. They can’t reconcile their current state, their current condition with the proverbial American dream. They have been seduced by their environment to believe that this right now is all that is possible.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>We need a vision that captivates and involves even those among us who have attention-deficit issues from the most hardened areas of our region. Let’s start with a vision that has both economic and social implications.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Every child will have the opportunity to intellectually actualize. Every child will be encouraged early on to imagine college. We need to have a campaign with a singular focus on creating a culture of high expectation. We need to shift our language from, “Are you going to college?” to “what college are you going to?”
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>I propose that we equip boys and girls clubs, YMCAs and other organizations who indicate a focus on child development, college readiness and access with tools and resources to empower their young people. With this regional investment should also come a new level of accountability for outcomes.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>So many of our partner agencies are tackling these and other issues that stunt the growth of our young people, let’s make it a regional priority. Doing so now will change the fate of the next generation of children as values shift, and norms change.
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“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Kimbrough is Senior Vice President at United Way of Greater St. Louis. He is an adjunct instructor at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work and serves as finance chair of Missouri State University.
