The Sweet Potato Project: a Sound Strategy to "Stop the Killing"

Last week, a 16-year-old boy, Peter Childs, was shot in the back and pronounced dead at the scene. The shooting happened in broad daylight in the 4800 block of Anderson Avenue which is part of the Penrose neighborhood in North St. Louis.

Tonight, May 14^th, concerned citizens, the alderman of the 21^st Ward, Antonio French, and others will host a “Stop the Violence” rally at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church just a block from the shooting. No doubt, there will be discussions about increased police presence and possibly more surveillance cameras in the ward. I suspect there will be a call for more jobs and opportunities for young people in the ward and a call for the mayor to “do more” to stem senseless violence in St. Louis.

Tonight, I will be amongst the crowd, talking about another alternative and laying out another strategy to reclaim our neighborhoods and save young lives. The sad truth is that we will never reduce crime or the fatalities in low income communities until we offer more opportunities that can compete with the deadly drug trade. Sadly, too many youth surrounded by negativity and few examples of successful entrepreneurism they can relate to, get involved with illegal activities mainly to generate income.  They have no idea that opportunities and self-sufficiency is right outside their doors.

This summer, the 2013 Sweet Potato Project will begin again in the 21^st Ward with the support of Alderman French and St. Elizabeth’s Church. Classes will be held at its affiliate school, St. Louis Catholic Academy. This means we have a foothold in a troubled community and a chance to work with parishioners, residents and stakeholders in the neighborhood to implement a sustainable education, job and small business plan.

Last summer, the North Area Community Development Corporation (NACDC) introduced this unique 9-week program. 15 “at-risk” youth (ages 15-to-19) were paid a bi-weekly stipend to grow sweet potatoes. The project’s goal is to turn produce into viable, marketable products. Entrepreneurs, professionals and experts in several fields teach leadership, conflict resolution and business classes. Our students are taught how to design their own website and are given marketing, advertising, product distribution and other lessons in entrepreneurism. Our goal is to create a generation of young, independent, inner-city entrepreneurs who will take ownership of their neighborhoods.

The Sweet Potato Project is just the 1^st phase of a massive agenda to bring economic vitality back to long-neglected north side neighborhoods. Our long-term goals include massive community farming, food-based product development, packaging, canning and distribution of produce and products from low-income areas of our city. In short, we’re talking about jobs and small businesses in North St. Louis.

 

With this effort, we plant the seed of sustainable economic activity controlled by residents and supported by the larger community. Next year, we will seek larger plots of land for farming and explore creating other marketable food-based products. Within five years, we can establish a food processing center, spin-off businesses and perhaps a nonprofit restaurant that trains and employs at-risk youth.

We realize that this is a major, ambitious vision that has to be instituted strategically. To that end, we will host a fundraiser featuring celebrity Chef Jeff Henderson on May 19th (click here for more info) and hold a community meeting on May 23^rd at St. Elizabeth’s Church to invite and engage the community in our efforts. As an extension of the program, residents will be invited to plant sweet potatoes in their own or in neighborhood gardens. During Harvest season, NACDC will buy their yields for cookie production. We will again turn to our body of supporters and consumers and ask that they support the project by purchasing cookies made by North St. Louis youth.

With this singular effort, we plant the seed of sustainable economic activity controlled by residents and supported by the larger community. Next year, we will seek larger plots of land for farming and explore creating other marketable food-based products. Within five years, I believe, we can establish a gardening and food processing center, spin-off businesses and perhaps a nonprofit restaurant that trains and employs at-risk youth. With full community engagement, the possibilities are endless. There’s no reason why another program can’t be created specifically for felons returning to society. We can impact recidivism dramatically if there are community-based educational money-making opportunities ready the day of their release. This is why I am so excited to work with Chef Jeff Henderson, America's leading authority on helping at-risk populations transform their lives personally and professionally.

Last week, a 16-year-old boy lost his life to senseless violence. This week, it is my prayer that we begin creating alternatives and opportunities that address the madness while providing a real pathway to holistic individual and community transformation.

As always, your support is desperately needed.

-Sylvester Brown, Jr.

 

Important Dates:

1)      Sat, May 18^th (9am-noon):  1^st Community Planting Day / Youth Recruitment / 21^st Ward

2)       Sat, May 19^th (4pm-6pm): VIP Fundraiser with Chef Jeff Henderson / Portfolio Gallery

3)      Thurs., May 23th (6:30pm-8:30pm) Community Engagement Meeting  / St. Elizabeth Church

4)      Sat, May 25^th (9am-noon):  2nd Community Planting Day / Youth Recruitment / 21^st Ward

5)      Mon. June 10^th  / Sweet Potato Project Classes begin / St Louis Catholic Academy

Sweet Potato Project Update: Confessions of a Naïve Optimist

 

The past two years have been more than a challenge for me personally. I’m still rebuilding a life that came to an abrupt and costly end after my departure from the St. Louis Post Dispatch in 2009. Yet, I maintain that the struggle has made me stronger and brought me closer to what I believe I am destined to do.
 

If I was still at the newspaper, there would be no Sweet Potato Project. I would not have come in contact with an incredible nonprofit-the North Area Community Development Corporation or the benevolent individuals, who believe that we can indeed reduce violence, reinvigorate long-ignored communities and save young lives. Without the struggles, I would not have been blessed to spend last summer with 15 North St. Louis youth who I no longer consider “at-risk.”

 

Therefore, I am still the naive optimist. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse but I stubbornly believe that we can bring jobs, businesses and economic vitality to low-income and high-crime areas in our region. I am glued to the idea that young people can inspire this progressive movement. Last year, the Sweet Potato Project youth planted produce (sweet potatoes) and created a product (sweet potato cookies). People bought the product and the youth now see that they have money-making options that do not include illegal activity.

For me, this is huge! It is a seed for sustainable change. If we can turn one vacant lot into productive land, why can’t we create entire blocks for farming?  If young people can create one product from produce grown on a vacant lot, why can’t we develop more? Why can’t we have large scale packaging, canning and distribution from a food factory in North St. Louis? Who’s to say that food-related jobs and spin-off businesses such as transportation and delivery services, bakeries, coffee shops and local markets can’t be created from this humble but powerful endeavor?

We are now about a month out from starting the 2013 summer Sweet Potato Project program. We’re still in the process of raising funds to run a more effective program and that pays more youth minimum wage stipends throughout the summer. Apparently, the struggle continues but, once again, I am joined by a small group of optimistic dreamers who are determined to do our dead-level best to raise the funds, start planting and begin classes on time.

Why? Because we have no choice. Our project is but a micro example of what must be done in a time where those impacted by generational poverty are even more endangered. The recession has changed the rules of engagement. With a virtually shattered middle-class, with a country still under siege from budgetary restraints; the less fortunate are expected to maintain with even less and without traditional government safety nets.

Along with the growing unemployment and poverty numbers, our nation’s prisons and juvenile detention centers continue to swell with those who feel they have no legal or viable options to sustain themselves. Unfortunately, they swell with disproportionate numbers of young, minority youth.

I maintain that a revolutionary, new template is in order. We will never reduce crime or the numbers of young people attracted to it until we offer a different, sustainable, do-for-self model of economic engagement and activity in the communities in which they live.

Today, we were granted permission to hold the summer program at St. Louis Catholic Academy on Shreve & Carter with the support of the progressive St, Elizabeth Baptist Catholic Church. This means we can now take our first step toward neighborhood engagement with more vacant lots and the active engagement of adult parishioners and residents. It also means we will have more than a program; we’ll have a sustainable movement in the 21st Ward, a neighborhood where our progressive seed can grow.

We will never reduce crime or the numbers of young people attracted to it until we offer a different, sustainable, do-for-self model of economic engagement and activity in the communities in which they live.

 

Why keep pushing forward even when the money needed is nowhere in sight? Mostly, it’s because of the youth involved. I have sent letters to influential individuals with means about the possibilities of this project. Most have gone unanswered. In a way, I get it. I’m talking about investing time, money and resources in people and communities that have been deemed “valueless.” The youth-perhaps because they, like me, are naive optimist, get it. Last year, after just two months, they were empowered; they talked of products that could be created and ways to reach and teach the next Sweet Potato Project class.

How can we waver in the face of such optimism? How can I not keep pushing forward when I’ve seen how easily a vision and one-on-one connections can transform a group mostly comprised of typical, rock-headed, back-talking, stubborn teens? How can I not use my energy to fuel a movement to create young, urban entrepreneurs in long-ignored communities?

It’s been extremely challenging trying to rebuild a life, earn a living while creating a community program for youth but no one promised life without struggle. Sometimes, in its midst, new observations and insights emerge. I consider it a blessing that the Incarnate Word Foundation, Lincoln University’s Urban Impact Center, World Wide Technology, the Missouri Foundation for Health considered our project worthy of support last year. We’re hoping they and others will help us again before our start date.

Time and money is short. We face the same challenges in 2013 that we tackled last year. Some of the youth who joined us last year are ready to start again, this time as mentors to the 2013 class. They know of the challenges yet they faithfully believe we can start anew.

This is encouragement enough for a naive optimist.

 

 

 

 

Click logo below to VOTE for the Sweet Potato Project on Rally Saint Louis:

 

 

 

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Please Vote for the Sweet Potato Project, now one of Rally Saint Louis' projects

“I learned that there are a lot of ways you can get a product out there and get them sold.”

– Charles, 15, 2012 Sweet Potato Project youth 

As you may know, I and the board of the North Area Community Development Corporation (NACDC) are frantically trying to raise funds for the 2013 Sweet Potato Project. We maintain that we will never be able to significantly reduce crime or the fatalities of young people in low income communities of St. Louis until we offer more opportunities that can compete with the deadly drug trade. Sadly, too many youth surrounded by negativity and few examples of successful entrepreneurism in low-income communities they can relate with, get involved with illegal activities mainly to generate income. They have no idea that opportunity and self-sufficiency is right outside their doors.

With this in mind, we were ecstatic to learn about the Rally Saint Louis project (read more Rally StL here), a first-of-its-kind crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding platform that generates ideas and uses funding from the region’s residents to help market greater Saint Louis. Unlike traditional crowd-funding efforts, Rally Saint Louis is a grassroots movement powered by its people and backed by a diverse team of influential St. Louis supporters. Each month, the top five vote getters are chosen to move to a funding phase. 

 

Once again, we're turning to our supporters for help.

 

Because our goal is to make the Sweet Potato Project a national template for urban renewal and job and small business creation, we are more than pleased to have been accepted as one of Rally St. Louis' projects. We're hoping this will generate the kind of excitement and support needed to not only kick off an expanded program this year, but to involve and engage the larger community in a ground-breaking effort to revitalize long-neglected communties.

 

“I got maturity, experience on establishing a hard foundation and running a business. I learned about employees and how to advertise my products.”

- Keon, 2012 Sweet Potato Project youth

 

The immediate goal is to foster a generation of youth in North St. Louis who take ownership of troubled neighborhoods. With knowledge, exposure and engagement they receive through this program, youth are empowered to become change-agents in their own communities.

 

“The presenters gave us positive activities and provided a different look at what’s out there and what’s possible.”

- Marquita, 2012 Sweet Potato Project youth
 

Our 2013 goals include securing a home to conduct classes and prepare cookies, embedding the project into a specific neighborhood (21st Ward in North St. Louis) and engaging residents within the area for the long-term vision of food-based economic stability and sustainable jobs ( see model for sustainable communities here).

 

The Sweet Potato Project has been a grassroots effort from its inception. The 2012 pilot program was severely underfunded but thanks to the support of a few agencies, corporate supporters, presenters and generous donors, our kids created their own product (sweet potato cookies) from produce they planted and began making limited sales late last year.

  

We need your votes to help excite the entire St. Louis region about our project and its long-term potential. Please visit our page Rally St. Louis  and vote often and with passion. I'll keep you updated on our progress.

 

Here's thanking you in advance for your continued support. - SBJ

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR THE SWEET POTATO PROJECT

 

 

Jimmie Edwards' message about jail, school and youth gets deserved national airing

 

By Sylvester Brown Jr., special to the Beacon

Originally printed in The Beacon Mon, 03.25.13/6:52 am

Each year, more than 300,000 school-age children go through the criminal justice system. This means that America, a country with the worlds’ highest incarceration rate, is also the global leader in the criminalization of its children. Due in large part to “zero tolerance” policies adopted in the late 1990s, our country’s educational and juvenile court systems have become major suppliers to the school-to-prison pipeline.

It’s a distinction that has compelled the founder of Innovative Concept Academy and Juvenile Court Judge, Jimmie Edwards, to take immediate action:

“Locking up an 11-year-old in jail for any length of time doesn’t make sense for him, for his family and certainly not for his community.”

Watch "Education Under Arrest" Promo on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

Edwards and other educators, law enforcement professionals, youth advocates and at-risk teens themselves are featured in “Education Under Arrest,” which airs Tuesday, March 26 on PBS. Hosted by public radio and TV commentator Tavis Smiley, viewers visit Washington state, Louisiana, California and Missouri where they meet experts, like Judge Edwards, who detail the connections between the juvenile justice system and America’s dropout rate.

America, a country with the worlds’ highest incarceration rate, is also the global leader in the criminalization of its children.

“One in every three teens who is arrested, is arrested in school — which literally arrests their progress for a promising education,” Smiley explains. “We’re just losing too many kids to this system. There seems to be a highway in but barely a sidewalk out.”

Local and national headlines underscore the realities of schools that have become too reliant on security guards, police and the courts. Earlier this month, an 8-year-old student at Lovejoy Elementary School in Alton had her hands and feet cuffed by police, according the child’s guardians, because she allegedly threw a tantrum in class. Last year around this time, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a public indictment calling the actions of Baltimore City police who arrested and handcuffed 8- and 9-year-old children at school “appalling.” The Chicago School System has been sued by parents of 6- and 7-year-old children who were handcuffed for hours in 2010 and threatened by school security guards for talking in class.

The 1999 Safe Schools Act is Missouri’s equivalent of the zero tolerance initiative. Since its passage, Judge Edwards says, the law has had a devastating impact on children, particularly poor and minority youth:

“It has taken away the opportunity of school administrators, various superintendents to address discipline within the state’s school districts. It has allowed the system to pass the buck onto the courts and, unfortunately, when children are put in court systems they are treated like criminals.

Education Under Arrest also looks at what’s working to counter the devastatingly high number of kids arrested at schools for infractions that, years ago, resulted in a visit to the principal’s office or a call to parents. Officials dedicated to keeping kids in school and reforming the educational and criminal justice systems boldly speak out. As a leading advocate for judicial change and founder of a public school for “at-risk” youth, Edwards provides a passionate voice of reason:

“You take an 11 or 12 year old and lock them up for an hour, a day or two days because they possessed marijuana and that child will know more about criminality when he gets out than he would have ever known in a lifetime. He now knows more about marijuana, how to cook crack cocaine, how to make methamphetamine and how to load an assault weapon. These are things he learned inside the system.

“As an appointed judge, I have the ability to go back and look at that ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ legislation all over America,” Edwards said. “See, I believe that that paradigm has to be eradicated … we have to educate our kids.”

You take an 11 or 12 year old and lock them up for an hour, a day or two days because they possessed marijuana and that child will know more about criminality when he gets out than he would have ever known in a lifetime.

- Judge Jimmie Edwards

Edwards’ school, Innovative Concept Academy, serves as a testament to his commitment. The judge provides an opportunity for juveniles who have been expelled from the city's public schools, who are on parole or who appear in his courtroom to have a second chance at education in an environment specifically structured to meet their needs.

Smiley maintains that America continues to play a “high-stakes game” with its youth. He cites overcrowded classrooms, inexperienced teachers, the “unholy trinity of drugs, parental neglect and violence” and a system that routinely forces kids out of classrooms and into courtrooms as recipes for disaster.

“Zero tolerance does not work,” he says. “We don’t expect adults to live lives of zero tolerance so how can we expect children to live lives of zero tolerance? Zero tolerance is completely incongruent with what it means to be a child. Being a child means making mistakes and hopefully learning from those mistakes.”

Zero tolerance is completely incongruent with what it means to be a child. Being a child means making mistakes and hopefully learning from those mistakes. -Tavis Smiley

In “Education Under Arrest” and armed with a bevy of viable options to criminalizing children, Smiley asks whether we want to be defined as a “nation of angry criminals or educated citizens.” If the answer is the latter, we are compelled to follow Judge Edwards and others and implement immediate ways to halt the arrest and criminalizing of our youth.

St. Louis Beacon: How Slay won (With maps and charts)

By Brent Jones, Presentation editor
St. Louis Beacon: 03.06.13

In Tuesday's Democratic primary, Mayor Francis Slay won 54 percent of the vote to Lewis Reed's 44 percent, with a final vote total of 23,968 for Slay to 19,494 for Reed. Jimmy Matthews got 575 votes, just over 1 percent. Reed's biggest vote margin victory was in the 21st Ward where he won 1,153 more votes than Slay. Slay saw a 2,048-vote margin of victory in the 16th Ward. The closest race by percentage, was in the 6th Ward, Reed's home ward, where Slay won by 3.9 percent, or 81 votes. City turnout was a tick over 22 percent, ranging from a high of over 35 percent in the 16th Ward to 13.4 percent in the 20th.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL SOURCE 

 

 

Slay on the path to make history as he wins St. Louis' Democratic primary for mayor

St. Louis Beacon / 03-05-13

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay appears to be on his way to becoming the city’s longest-serving chief executive, after winning Tuesday’s Democratic primary over his chief rival, Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed.

\With all of the ballots counted, Slay led with 54.4 percent of the vote to Reed's 44.3 percent. But the margin was only about 4,500 votes; Slay collected 23,968 votes to Reed's 19,494 votes. Former Alderman Jimmie Matthews finished a distant third, with only 575 votes.

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HOW SLAY WON

Slay's path to victory ran through southwest and central areas of St. Louis

St. Louis Post-Dispatch / 03-07-13

by Nicholas J.C. Pistor

Click here for full article

 

ST. LOUIS • Slay this year faced his strongest challenger yet, after cruising to re-election in previous campaigns. In 2009, Slay garnered nearly 62 percent of the vote when his main challenger was former Alderman Irene Smith and turnout was much lower. On Tuesday, Slay earned 54 percent of the vote against Reed.

Voters in the southwest St. Louis wards running from Interstate 44 south to Interstate 55 showed up in the biggest numbers — and they went solidly for Slay. For example, Slay won 85 percent of the vote in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood’s 16th Ward, where more than one-third of registered voters turned out to vote, the city’s highest rate. That alone accounted for 2,400 votes for the mayor.

David Kimball, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, noted that the “turnout in north city appears to be closer to the turnout in south city, at least as compared to previous city elections.”

But Slay benefited from the monster turnout in a few of his most loyal wards. Reed had no ward in the north that turned out for him in as big of numbers. His best showing was in the 21st Ward, where almost 24 percent of registered voters turned out, totaling about 1,500 votes.

In the end, Kimball said the election “was a referendum on the mayor’s job performance. I suspect that when we look at the exit poll results, we will find that a majority of St. Louis voters have positive evaluations of the mayor and the direction of the city.”

 

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