New Haven Independent

It upset her being yelled at when she got the sometimes demanding routines wrong, Shay said. “But I overcame that. I learned to deal with the frustration, because we’re competitive and we have to get it right, and now I’m back.”

This exchange was one of many that added up to a “community conversation” between kids and adults who fund their summer programs, organized by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven on Tuesday evening. Its purpose was both to emphasize and to celebrate the positive benefits when kids are engaged in positive activities, internships, and camps this summer, and to find out what the community can do to improve and expand the effort.

Warren Kimbro, who works with ex-offenders through Project MORE, and knows a thing or two about young people falling into self-destructive behavior, was full of praise for kids who have the discipline of the Soul-O-ettes. He also had praise for those, such as his tablemate interlocutor, Shawanda Miller, who have been making digital stories this summer through the Color of Words digital story telling program.

“Why are these positive activities as important, if not more important than giving the kids jobs? I’ll tell you,” said Kimbro. “It’s not that jobs are not important. But we can train people to be housepainters or bricklayers or computer people, but if they don’t have character, what do you end up with? Artisans with bad character and bad attitudes.

“These programs teach teamwork and how to be good citizens. Believe me, in my work with ex-offenders, the difficult thing is to build character, and that’s what’s happening here. And it’s critical. Character and attitude. Are the streets meaner or different now from when I was running on them? Yes. There’s something about the attitude. We need to eliminate this attitude that if you go into the wrong neighborhood, or embarrass someone, then it’s OK to shoot. What is different is attitude, or character if you will.”

Miller, who is 15 and a student at High School in the Community, has spent the summer making digital stories on environmental themes with kids from Solar Youth, another organization represented at the Community Foundation conclave.

“I feel my confidence has grown,” she said, “along with leadership skills. When I joined the Color of Words, I thought it was going to be all about computers, which didn’t interest me that much. But then I saw that it’s about telling stories, and I learned things about people, and also noticed things about myself I never had before.”

On prominent display was also the ability of so many of these young people to speak, not only to the press (!) but to the public. This young woman, 15-year-old Stacey Dixon, was one of several Solar Youth representatives who spoke with poise and confidence about their working with kids as counselors, overcoming fears of, for example, too many kids to deal with, of not getting along with fellow counselors, who may come from different backgrounds or countries.

“The longer the kids are associated with an organization,” said Joanne Sciulli, the director of Solar Youth (pictured below with Edward Salmond, a coach with the Soul-O-ettes), “the more confidence, the safer they feel, and the more they flourish. In my view, it’s the long-term relationship with the kids that these activities foster that’s key.”

“That’s absolutely right, ” said Salmond, a Hillhouse High 16-year-old with great aplomb and fluency — so much so, he not only spoke, he knew where he was and he fundraised. He sought money for three new members of his Soul-O-ettes, as well as support for the group to make its goal to fund a performance in Toledo before summer’s end.

Then he added, candidly, “I still often feel like throwing up a wall between myself and others, but I overcome it. “

“Instead of their just talking,” said Salmond, “we need adults really to be with us. Not just funding. But to be there to understand. Not just to give advice but to listen. Once someone came out to one of our competitions, and he began to tell me what my problem was. He was telling, when grownups should be asking me more. When grownups really ask, and listen, it touches the heart.”