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Some of the
approximately 100 students who were possibly facing the
anxiety of whether they could afford a two-year or a
four-year college educational experience, can now relax and
focus on what is important: learning and growing.
Caveat: Are Toledo
Public Schools able to provide the support environment so
that these kids can succeed at the college level or will the
results in a few years from this “test” group of students
show that Toledo Public still has not turned the corner
heading towards educational excellence?
It is amazing what you
can achieve when money is not an impediment to your
educational endeavors and you can focus your mental and
emotional energy on excelling in your studies without
worrying about how you are going to pay that due and owing
tuition bill or that large book fee.
What is sad is that
any of the graduating students whom, for whatever reason,
did not diligently apply themselves to the learning process,
could be left out and are now looking on at their fellow
students who did what was needed to make themselves ready
for a two-year or four-year college experience.
Not left out of this
equation was the needful inclusion of funding students who
wish to enter a trade or a vocational school. We need
plumbers and pipefitters as urgently as we need teachers and
attorneys. The body is made up of many parts and each part
gives supply to the whole.
Now, here is where I
get preachy, so hang on for a moment.
You know what Pete
Kadens did was fab and needful and we are
thankful from the heart
because he saw beyond his own four walls and wanted to be of
help and service to make a difference in so many young
lives.
And he did and the
repercussions of his fantastic gift (which could possibly be
extended on a yearly basis?) will be reverberating in the
lives of the affected kids for generations to come.
However here is the
rub. Individually, black people in Toledo may not have had
the financial fatback that Mr. Kadens had but, collectively,
the aggregate black churches in Toledo, over a period of
time, could have done something similar, albeit on a smaller
basis, but nonetheless, it was a deed that could have been
accomplished.
I say that to the
aggregate shame and discredit of black churches in Toledo
which, over the past 30 to 50 years and in which time frame,
collective economics of sharing the weekly giving plate
would have generated sufficient funds to do a similar
undertaking that Kadens did.
As I have written for
many, many years, the black churches in Toledo, per week,
take in tens of thousands of dollars and, when combined with
each other churches, multiple millions of dollars are
collected yearly via the weekly Sunday offerings.
But, where do those
discretionary dollars (after expenses of building, utilities
and salaries are paid) go?
Are you telling me
that after 50-plus years of passing the offering plate each
and every Sunday and Wednesday night that the collective
black churches in Toledo, could not devise a plan by which a
black high school graduating class could not be similarly
blessed?
Are you serious? Of
course, it could have been done and done well because we
have the people with the brains and wisdom to develop and
carry out such a plan but alas, it was not done.
Shame…shame…and more
shame on any and all black churches that were lax and
clueless as to sharing their weekly wealth for the economic
good of their communities.
The same black
communities whence they draw their sustenance and wealth but
yet save for the proverbial and paltry “50 dollar”
scholarships, our youths are not being blessed with such
needed largesse.
Shame and more shame
on the diffident pastors and boards of elders, deacons and
trustees who did not and still do not make provision to find
ways to share their individual church wealth with other
local churches so that the black community could thrive; and
they not look as if they are trapped in the forties with
backward thinking and sticky hands that will not share.
Shame and more shame
that a white person had to light such a fire in black folks
to show them that even though you may not have billion
dollar wealth, you could still be affirmative and organize
and invest income so that decades later, you could be a
giver and not just a passer of the offering plate.
There are articles
that bespeak of the national collective wealth of black
churches amounting in the billions, but you would not know
it from our scanty track record of supporting large scale
academic or social uplift programs.
If you did not know
better, you would think that the black church, the most
wealthiest entity in the black community, was asleep at the
pulpit being satisfied with jubilant songfests, drawn out
pastor appreciation days, youth outings to Cedar Point and
raising money for new choir robes!
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
tolliver@juno.com
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