|
A deep commitment to
service and community is at the heart of John Jones’ vision
for HOPE (Helping Our Population Educate) Toledo’s directive
to create and deliver a quality education from cradle to
career.
“Education is the greatest
civil rights effort that we can undertake,” said Jones,
president of the 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization whose
most recent efforts involve the HOPE Toledo Promise
initiative at Scott High School.
The program, which was
funded by Pete Kadens of The Kadens Family Foundation and
creator of HOPE Toledo, pledged to pay four and a half years
of tuition to a public college, university, or trade school
for Scott High School’s entire 2020 senior graduation class
and one parent from each family.
“The better our children
are educated the more opportunities they will have and the
better our communities will be,” Jones said about HOPE
Toledo’s commitment to educational advancement for those in
the Toledo community.
Jones, who grew up in
Toledo’s inner city, has first-hand knowledge that a quality
education can be the catalyst to closing economic gaps in
low-income communities.
A degree from Central
State University followed by career stints at Ernst & Young
and ProMedica have opened the doors for Jones to take his
place in board rooms and have become the building blocks
that have brought him full circle to help others succeed.
“Our quality education
concept was birthed out of questions on how we could create
a program to eliminate barriers in our communities,” said
Jones.
“You don’t need to look
far across our landscape to see that, in our community,
pursuing a secondary education is difficult. There are often
too many silos created that make it hard to connect the dots
from where people are to the classroom.”
According to the
Ohio
Department of Education, in 2019, more than
800,000 students were classified as economically
disadvantaged, an 18 percent increase from 10 years ago.
Despite a plethora of
contributing issues that threaten to overwhelm low-income
communities and communities of color thereby keeping them on
the margins of society, Jones continues the push toward a
data driven emphasis on quality education and its capacity
to lift the underserved out of lifelong and generational
poverty.
“In order to be
successful, the community needs to understand the value of
education in young people,” Jones said. “Education is the
great equalizer.”
For Jones, success also
comes in the form of strategic partnerships and hands-on
involvement.
But while he acknowledges
that partnerships with like-minded organizations, which
include Toledo Public Schools, ProMedica, and the Greater
Toledo Community Foundation, have been vital to HOPE
Toledo’s overall growth, Jones says he would like to see
more community members find a place within the program.
“We have volunteers who
have actively been doing this for decades,” Jones said. “But
at the end of the day we need to continue to elevate the
message of education.”
“We need a community who
understands that early childhood education is essential to a
four-year-old’s trajectory,” said Jones. “We need community
volunteers who will come alongside and help us carry out
that mission as well as those who will work with us as
mentors on the Promise side of the program to help students
make the transition from high school to post-secondary
learning spaces.”
As the organization clears
its first hurdles – finding stability in its first year of
operation and navigating the challenges of the ongoing COVID
crisis – Jones believes that the HOPE Toledo Promise project
at Scott High School is just the beginning of what the
organization plans to accomplish in the next five years.
“We have to be
intentional,” Jones said, as the organization’s cradle to
career objective continues to push to increase its
capacities.
“An ideal quality
education involves one that is loaded and reflects six-hour
days and five-day weeks,” said Jones. “We want to see
teachers compensated properly in early education spaces and
we also want to see some barriers eliminated in
post-secondary spaces. The better our children are educated,
the more opportunities they will have, but it will take time
and hard work.”
On its face, it may seem
like a huge undertaking in just five years but Jones has a
secret weapon that keeps him motivated and on track; family
legacy and faith.
The legacy is rooted among
his family’s place at Christian Temple Baptist Church where
his grandmother once pastored, his father currently pastors,
and where Jones himself is associate pastor. It’s where
Jones says he first learned about the importance of service
and the importance of sowing seeds that help to build the
next generation.
“My father always told me
to do the work that will produce fruit for the next
generation,” Jones said. “I’m not doing this so that I can
see the fruit of it, but so that my children and their
children can.”
To learn more about HOPE
Toledo’s Promise initiative and how you can get involved
contact them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HopeToledoPromise
|
