This morning, I attended a breakfast hosted by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce on the Daily News' Rethinking Philadelphia report, "Philly has work to do." And I promised you an update.
The point of the section was to make the case that job creation must be a central tenet of any crime-fighting strategy and to suggest ways that the business community could get started. (We've archived it on our Jobs page -- please read it.)
It was quite a morning. The Millennium Ballroom at the Lowe's was packed with people, and the room was a mix of people who work on the streets of Philadelphia, with our kids -- as well as business leaders. I am not sure I've ever heard the two groups talk so frankly before.
A heartrending high point came from a Cheney University executive, who told the group that she loses one or two young men at Cheney to Philadelphia violence every year. As she began to cry, she said she was tired of having memorials instead of graduations for these young, once-promising victims.
The mixing of these two groups was not automatic or easy. Among the community leaders (and I apologize in advance for leaving out many who I am sure were there) I saw Bilal Qayyum of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, many people from the workforce development world (including the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board and the Philadelphia Youth Network) as well as many professionals who straddle the worlds of the boardroom and the neighborhoods, including John Childress of the African-American Chamber of Commerce and panelist David Brown, who runs BrownPartners ad agency as well as being a religious leader, volunteer and relentless advocate for city kids. This group wanted to get the business community to listen to their plea for help, for safer streets and more opportunity. They were desperate, and who can blame them? New York is six times the size of our city, and yet Philadelphia has more murders. Not per capita. In total.
The business community was there in force, with impressive turnouts from Lockheed Martin, PECO, the legal community, Commerce Bank and others. But some of them had questions. Were they being asked to create jobs for kids who would rather be up to no good on street corners? Would they have to shoulder the entire city's problems because educational and criminal justice programs were clearly not curbing the violence?
And yet, both groups stayed, and the groups listened to each other. It was remarkable.
A young man on the panel explained how a Lockheed Martin internship changed his life. He wasn't a troubled kid by any means -- he was just a kid at William Penn High School, with probably not a lot of options beyond struggling out of high school and into Community College. Instead, Lockheed picked him for an apprenticeship, trained him, gave his experience, and hired him after graduation. Now he has an excellent, easily transferable job -- and he's at Community College, too.
That, it turned out, is the point: There are lots of kids like him in city schools. They aren't bad, and they aren't standouts. Similar kids in more privileged circumstances have some, if limited, options. But kids in struggling city schools have fewer options. They may need a break. The goal of the Chamber's call for internships is to give it to them.
I have to give a lot of credit to the Chamber of Commerce for leading the way on this effort. Led by Chairman Joe Frick (of Independence Blue Cross) and former Governor Mark Schweiker (the chamber's CEO) they did not back down from the challenge from anti-violence activists and they did not lapse into pessimism. They presented the 1,000 internship goal as a start, something that the city can do to begin the process of uniting workforce development and violence prevention.
I certainly hope this effort is successful, grows and continues the conversation.
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