By Brenda Bailey, May 27, 2010
There is a program in Georgia called “The Partners-in-Education,” where a business and a school join forces to help each other with projects. When the business needs volunteers for quarterly mailings, or guides during open house, they use the students from the school. When the school needed prizes or supplies, they ask the business.
Everyday, we are bombarded by reports from TV, newspapers, neighbors, family, and even ourselves about how young people are so lazy, disrespectful, unmotivated, etc., etc., etc. But we don’t hear much about all the wonderful young people struggling to just make a positive and prosperous future for themselves. Young people attending school, working, volunteering, and making a conscious effort to stay out of trouble.
I was privileged to be asked to judge an Art Contest at the area school, which consisted of elementary, middle, and high school students. I am not in any way an art critic, so when I arrived at the school, I was nervous about what I would see and do. And what I saw blew me away.
There were tables from wall to wall of the gym filled with completed projects of the students. One table had an exact replica of the Titanic with the smoke stacks, anchor, lettering, and gangplank. Another table had the Mona Lisa painted just like the one in the Louvre. There was a model of the White House, a farm with all the animals in clay, paintings of landscapes, towns, and one student had painted a picture using just dots.
Again, I was blown away! To me, everyone was a first place winner. I requested that the projects be displayed on my job, and the employees were as impressed as I was.
So, our young people just need a chance to show what they can do, and a place to do it, and people that will encourage them.