6th Avenue Baptist shows up for Yes We Can, Birmingham.

The Titusville neighborhood is one of the under recognized gems of Birmingham. Historically it is an important area in producing many of the city's professionals, business people and leaders. Earlier this week the ever-active Helen Rivas sent me an email listing the YECB meetings this week; two were in the Eastlake area and one was at 6th Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville. Even though I live in Norwood, my first instinct was to go to the 6th Avenue meeting instead of the Eastlake ones. "I know 6th Avenue" I rationalized, the good, well dressed, professional members-of-Birmingham's-Black-backbone would certainly provide a productive meeting. We'll 6th Avenue didn't disappoint. While far from full, this meeting was well attended and had a lot of good ideas. Plus some REALLY good sweet iced tea and rolled sandwiches!

Many ideas were shared by attendees, some unique to this meeting: national certification for teachers, arts emphasis in the curriculum, training in the trades. On things that separated our area very similar concerns from the Opporto-Madrid meeting were voiced: routine and apathy keep people in their respective comfortable life spheres and the age-old Intown vs. the OTM divide. The Birmingham Schools Educational Foundation which is being formed out of this activity has

no official connection with the education foundations that have been in existence for years in Mountain Brook, Hoover and other cities.

That won't be changing anytime soon but the facilitators expressed optimism about how the bottom up approach of Yes We Can will lead to a better more productive Birmingham City Schools.

I will be reporting on more of these meetings in upcoming weeks. You can find out more by visiting the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham website. Even if you weren't at the meeting you can also leave your thoughts here to share your concerns and hopes for out local schools.

YES.WE.CAN!

Up until this Tuesday I have not been able to make to any of the Yes We Can! townhall style meetings going on around the city. Luckily the programs organizers are persistant in keeping these meetings going and I made it to one at the library on Oporto Madrid (beautiful building). I'm glad I did.

There was only a small group there, no suprise. Unfortunately only the most intersted in Birmingham's future are going to take time to go to these things. Pretty much everyone there currently served in some type of leadership role in their current life.

Interesting new ideas were shared. Two of the most interesting to me were creating schools with dormitories creating a residential system for public school students. WOW. Hadn't thought of that one in the past, but I believe it's worth a good review of costs and benefits. Another was a deeo more affordable entertainment options for families. There's opportunity for neighborhoods to be more aggressive in doing things like "movie nights" which could help with this.

Many things were shared in the hour and a half long meeting. I'm going to the one on today (7-17-08) at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Blvd. Meet me there.