Prospect of new community program with recent federal aid

The Obama administration recently passed a bill entitled “Promise Neighborhoods,” which will allow for 20 cities to create community centers to educate and support the youth in urban cities. As of Dec. 16, the bill will set aside $10 million for these projects in the 2010 budget. For years Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser has been searching for ways to keep local youth in school and set them up for better success during their future–and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Funkhouser traveled to New York City last November for a two-day conference where he discovered the program he wants to replicate in Kansas City. He and a group of delegates that included 3rd-District Kansas City Council member Melba Curls, Jim Caccamo of the Mid-America Regional Council, Tony Oppenheimer of The Private Bank, and Sister Berta Sailer of Operation Breakthrough had gone to the city in hopes of learning more about the Harlem Children’s Zone. While there, they met with the Children’s Zone President and CEO Geoffrey Canada, toured his facilities, met with staff and attempted to grasp a better understanding ofthe program.

“Our goal was to learn how Kansas City might qualify to receive federal funding for our replication of the zone,” Funkhouser said in his editorial in the Kansas City Star.

Since the founding of the Children’s Zone in 1989, the organization has worked to ensure that every child in the community is adequately prepared for higher education. The Children’s Zone has shown to be successful in its 20 years of operation. Ninety percent of the students involved go onto college. The main goal is for all children involved to receive support from their communities while working to graduate from both high school and college. Under the leadership of Canada, the Children’s Zone grew to serve almost 100 square blocks in Harlem. Children can begin participating in programs even before their pre-school years. From there students can attend elementary, middle school, and high school programs, which promote quality education and work to close the black-white achievement gap. Along with their programs that follow children from early education through college they also offer strong support for the families of the children the serve. In “Family, Community, and Health,” they offer a wide variety programs for adults, such as, counseling, parenting groups, and anger management classes as well as mental health facilities and food banks. Today the Children’s Zone serves more than 8,000 children and 6,000 adults.

Kansas City’s program, “Zone Two-7: Anchor of Hope,” is largely based on the Harlem Children’s Zone because of the positive results that have occurred. The college graduation rate is a step up from older statistics and the most profound achievement in Funkhouser’s opinion. The Zone Two-7 got its name from the area it will serve, the 64127 part of Kansas City adopting the last two digits.  The primary reason this area was chosen was because the residents showed a high need for support. The poverty rate was high and the high school completion rate was low. The rate in Kansas City School District in Missouri is less than half at 45.7 percent. In part with rebuilding, Funkhouser said city officials have tried to address the “deepest wound” of poverty in communities, starting with the children and families most affected.

“[We] chose an area of high poverty and considerable ethnic and racial diversity where [our state agencies] were already serving,” Funkhouser said

Although the main goal of this program is to increase education rates among Kansas City’s youth, Funkhouser adds that there are other benefits such as better neighborhoods and reduced crime and violence. He explains that when neighborhoods appear safer, more people choose to live there, increasing tax revenue

Kansas City began planning this program last year but just recently the Kansas City Council approved an undisclosed sum of money to further the effort. But Funkhouser knows that it will take a variety of different people to get this program up and running such as Kansas City Police Department Chief Jim Corwin and Kansas City School District Superintendent John Covington.

“As community leaders dedicated to the success of all Kansas Citians we know we must improve our education system, and this initiative is one step toward reaching that goal,” Corwin said in his article to the Kansas City Star.

Funkhouser predicts that it will take millions of dollars to really duplicate the Harlem program in Kansas City but assures that the funding will come from other already existing agencies.

“The existing budgets of agencies involved that are already paying to deal with these kids in the criminal justice system [will be used],” Funkhouser said. “It costs a lot more to incarcerate someone then it does to educate them.”

The Children’s Zone spends approximately $72 million a year but Caccamo assures that Kansas City will need “considerably” less but agrees with Funkhouser it will take several million.

Right now Funkhouser and his partners in the “Zone Two-7: Anchor of Hope” are focusing on applying for federal grant money. Without government funding the project will have to be pushed back. With only 20 cities chosen under this bill it is crucial for Funkhouser to prove Kansas City is in need of a community project. Funkhouser stresses that if Kansas City is going to replicate Harlem’s Children’s Zone, the need to be one of the cities chosen for federal funding.