One day at a park in his Old North neighborhood, Anthony Kilbert, 16, saw a little girl fall on a shard of glass. When the girl’s brother went to help her, he slipped on a puddle – because poor drainage is common in the parks, he said. Both children ended up in the hospital that day.
“I see kids get hurt every day,” said Kilbert, who is the president of the Old North Youth Council, which currently consists of boys 8 to 13. “I care about the kids. I want them to be active so they can achieve things and have goals for the future. If they don’t get that at the parks, where are they going to get it?”
Kilbert was among a group of boys who gave a presentation about the poor conditions of their neighborhood parks at a Tuesday night meeting. Chris Potter, youth community organizer with Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU), started the youth group in October.
In February, Potter said the group will meet with the city’s parks commissioner Dan Skillman to ask for improvements to the nearby Strodtman Park and Jackson Place Park – which are about a mile apart and both sit right next to Interstate 70. Both of the aldermen responsible for the parks – Freeman Bosley Sr. and Tammika Hubbard – were invited to the meeting but did not respond or attend, Potter said.
To back up the need for renovations, council members Asa White, 12, and Jeighlyn Johnson, 12, presented a slideshow of pictures. White showed one of a cracked slide in the jungle gym and said, “I didn’t feel safe going down it.”
White loves living in the Old North neighborhood, he said, especially living close to the famous Crown Candy Kitchen and other businesses. Growing up in Old North, White said he’s watched the streets get cleaner, houses get nicer and new businesses pop up. The nonprofit Old North Restoration Group has helped to lead that revitalization effort in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, which is largely African American. The meeting was held at the group’s office at 2700 North 14th Street.
“But the parks still need work,” White said.
Johnson learned about the group from Potter, who lives in the neighborhood and often plays basketball with the children. After a playing a game with Johnson, Potter told him about the group.
“He said he ran this group and that he could help us get better parks,” Johnson said. “I said I wanted to be part of it.”
Putting up fliers in the neighborhood did nothing to help him get kids involved, Potter said. Almost all of the now 15 members – all boys – joined after he met them on the basketball court. Potter approached Kilbert while he was working out at the Life For Life gym and told him he was starting a youth group that would try to improve the community better.
“I said it would be wonderful,” said Kilbert, who has several first place medals under his belt from weight lifting competitions.
His father encourages him to set goals for himself, he said, and one of them is to go to college and become a weapons specialist in the U.S. Army.
At the beginning of the school year, MCU also started a youth council downtown, said Brittini Gray, community organizer with MCU. And this month, they started another group in Ferguson. The youth groups are part of MCU’s initiative Students 4 Change, which Gray started a year ago in effort to teach children about community organizing.
Gray, a 25-year-old theology student at the Eden Theological Seminary, said the Ferguson protest movement emphasizes youth engagement – but mainly for people in their 20s.
“But what it does is open up the conversation to talk about what is pre-teen involvement as well,” said Gray, who was wearing a Millennium Activists United black hoodie with the words “Assata Taught Me” printed in white letters on the front.
Gray pulled out a piece of paper from her wallet: a quote by Brazilian educator Paulo Freier, stating “The greatest humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves…”
“I keep that with me,” she said, “because I believe the conditions in which urban youth live in is about getting liberation for themselves.”
Whether it’s police brutality in Ferguson, the education system in Normandy, or the parks and the living conditions in Old North, the “task of liberation is the same,” she said.
“And for youth to be able to understand that, they will have a better hope at our future,” she said.
The Old North Youth Council meets every Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at the Restoration Group office at 2700 North 14th Street. Although the group currently consists of all boys, they are looking for some girl members.
Taxpayers back parks
In recent years, taxpayers have consistently put their money behind the parks, in hopes of seeing their dilapidated parks renovated.
In April 2013, St. Louisans voted to approve Proposition P, The Safe and Accessible Arch and Public Parks Initiative. Prop P focused mainly on funding Gateway Arch grounds improvements, but it also includes community park renovations as well.
In December 2011, St. Louis city aldermen passed two bills to redevelop city parks by authorizing $64 million in bonds.
The board passed a $30 million bond for Forest Park capital projects and a $34 million bond for other city parks. Both bills had quite a bit of public support, and those funds became available after July 1, 2012. Former city parks director Gary Bess told the St. Louis American in 2011 that the city had planned to break up the projects into three sections: North City, South City and Forest Park. As part of the plan, each ward was also to receive $35,000 for tree planting.
Stillman has not yet responded to the American’s request for an update on the renovations regarding these bonds.
