Loading...
Bank of America presented a Local Hero award to the Rev. Kammy Young Nov 14 for her work in spearheading an initiative to increase access to quality early literacy centers for 600 children of low-income families.
Five awardees were chosen out of 30 nominated by community members during the bank’s 2011 Neighborhood Excellence Initiative (NEI) program. The NEI a philanthropic program recognizes and rewards nonprofits, local leaders and students.
As a result of Young’s leadership, 1,000 more children are enrolled this year in quality VPK programs and 230 more are receiving full-day vouchers enabling them to afford the quality programs offered through the state. In January of 2010, Young led a committee of 20 volunteers committed to addressing root causes leading to high-school drop-out. During several months of research they learned that gaps in school readiness that appear in kindergarten tend to persist throughout the school years, and in Duval County, Florida, the racial gap in achievement scores of high school students was already evident when children began school. In March of 2010, Young and her committee successfully secured commitments from the Jacksonville, Florida, Children's Commission and the Early Learning Coalition to allocate funding enabling 600 children to enroll in quality early learning centers.
In her remarks on receiving the award, Young quoted a portion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 "Where Do We Go From Here?” Annual Report delivered at the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, “… one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites — polar opposites — What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.”
Young said that while she is committed to doing the just and right thing for children in the community, it could not happen with only her love and commitment, it “… took 1,200 people coming together across boundaries that often divide us to put power behind our love to make those changes for their well being ... and we've got to keep on doing that … to make even more far-reaching changes in our public education system, restorative justice programs, homelessness prevention, and unemployment issues.”
The Bank of America Charitable Foundation contributed $5,000 to ICARE, the non-profit organization with which Young worked, and chosen by Young to receive the funds from the award.
Click here to see more information about the Neighborhood Initiative Program.
