February 25, 2019
A week or so ago a group of 31 teens from our Next Generation Scholars program had the opportunity to visit Amazon’s incredible distribution center in Baltimore. This is the second such visit hosted by our friends at Amazon and it's a not-to-be-forgotten experience! Next Generation Scholars is a state-funded effort that helps prepare participating students to be college-ready. Our Next Generation Scholars programs operate at Waverly and Walter P. Carter middle schools, which are both Y Community Schools located near the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Y.
In addition to a tour of the Amazon facility, which is like a giant robotics Lego set brought to life on a grand scale, students got to have a panel discussion with a team of Amazon employees about real world work life. Their questions included queries such as: “what is your educational background?” “What is your current job title and what does your daily schedule look like?” “What path did you take to get to this point in life?” “What were some of your biggest successes in life?” “What were some of your biggest disappointments educationally or professionally?” “What do you find most enjoyable about working at Amazon?”
I think you can tell from the thoughtful nature of the questions that this was an important experience taken very seriously by these young scholars.
Thanks to all the Y associates who helped make this important experience happen, including Debra Einstein, Catrina Springer, Donald Eaddy and Therm James, Jr., among others. Thanks also to all our friends at Amazon, including Courtney Johnson and Rachael Lighty!
On a related note, I didn’t want too much time to go by without saluting Edward Zigler, the Yale University professor who was one of the architects and early leaders of the federal Head Start program and who died a little over a week ago. His legacy is immense, when measured in terms of the impact he and his colleagues have had on the lives and life-outcomes of so many children living in poverty. If you’re interested, his obituary is linked here.
I am immensely proud of our Y’s long-time and substantial Head Start work. The almost 1,700 children and their families that we currently serve, in Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties, as well as in Baltimore City, are some of the most vulnerable but also most promising members of our community. They deserve the opportunity for an exceptional early childhood development experience, along with the suite of family services that come with it. The research and common sense tells us that providing children with high quality developmental and social-emotional support early in their lives can help to level the playing field for kids as they enter elementary school. We cannot assure equal outcomes in our society, but we can certainly work hard to provide equal opportunity for success, and Head Start does that. So, thank you Edward Zigler and all of those who conceived and launched Head Start, and thank you to the hundreds of Y professionals who do this critical work every day here in Central Maryland.
All the best,
John
John K. Hoey
President & CEO
The Y in Central Maryland