Senators met Monday evening to consider the possibility of bringing an after-school program and vocational school to the territory in the hopes of empowering the most at-risk members of the territory’s population.
Bill Strickland, winner of a MacArthur Genius Award and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, Penn., appeared before the committee of the whole to discuss his nationally-recognized plan to empower low-income families by teaching them arts and technology.
“I’ve figured out the cure for spiritual cancer,” Strickland told senators. He said that he began his program in 1971 in a donated row house in inner-city Pittsburgh. Now it operates out of a beautiful facility that has remained in that troubled community and serves about 3,900 youth each year.
He told senators that he has seen success because he’s learned that children and adults need beautiful places to work in and to feel valued in order to do their very best.
He said he has been able to successfully raise funds from companies like eBay and Hewlett-Packard to teach children and their parents the importance of art and music and technology – and he told senators that he thinks he can do it in the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well.
He said the territory would need put up $150,000 to fund a six-to-eight-month feasibility study, during which Strickland and his team would talk to local leaders and investigate what kind of school would best suit the needs of the territory. He would help in the selection of a board of directors for the program, and help find someone to run the program. He said in all, he and his team would be committed to working here for five years.
Senators were enthusiastic about working to bring Strickland’s proposal to the territories. They said that given the tough financial times, donations from private business would be key in funding both the feasibility study, and the program that would hopefully follow.
“The capital is there,” said Sen. Louis Patrick Hill, who noted that there are big businesses with deep pockets in the territory – and senators needed to start looking to them for donations.
In attendance were Sens. Craig Barshinger, Carlton “Ital” Dowe, Patrick Louis Hill, Wayne A.G. James, Terrence “Positive” Nelson, Usie Richards, Nereida “Nellie” Rivera-O’Reilly, Sammuel Sanes, Patrick Simeon Sprauve and Michael Thurland.
