As we sit down to black-eyed peas, collards and a generous helping of hope for more prosperous days in the year ahead, here are some resolutions we’d encourage local community leaders and citizens to make for 2010. These three have a direct bearing on the health as well as the wealth of the community at large.
This year, let’s resolve to:
– Declare war on poverty. The economy and jobs are foremost on everyone’s mind. We’ve been through ó and are still struggling to emerge from ó one of the toughest economic periods since the Great Depression. Yet for too many families in this community, hard times aren’t a cyclical occurrence or a temporary crisis; they’re a way of life. That reality hit home last February when a civic researcher pointed out that one out of four children in Salisbury lives in poverty. Within that statistic lies a host of other cancerous problems that eat away at the core of community, from infant mortality to gang violence. In their discussions about poverty, city leaders acknowledged it can be an overwhelming challenge, with no easy answers. Obviously, whatever boosts the local economy also helps lift up struggling individuals. But tackling poverty takes a more targeted approach. At one point, city leaders mulled holding a communitywide summit to brainstorm possible solutions. Let’s get it on the calendar.
– Drive down the dropout rate. Obviously, this is related to the previous item (as well as the one below), but it’s a chronic concern that merits its own listing. According to the most recent statistics, only 66.2 percent of students who entered high school in the Rowan-Salisbury School System four years ago received diplomas in 2008-09. That means at least one-third of students are falling behind in school, and are at risk of falling out entirely. Fortunately, major efforts are under way to change those numbers. The dropout rate is a top priority for the school system, as well as for education advocacy groups such as Communities in Schools of Rowan County, which recently received a $175,000 dropout prevent grant from the state. Church-based groups and individual volunteers have also joined the stay-in-school initiative. Let’s roll up our sleeves, embrace those efforts and make this the year when the dropout rate finally starts dropping.
– Forge more community partnerships. The Salisbury City Council and Board of County Commissioners set a great example for this last year, when they came together to discuss areas where they could work cooperatively. One result was their joint support for Read to Your Child Day, a program aimed at improving literacy across Rowan and raising the reading abilities of youngsters. It was truly inspirational to see individual council and commission members reading to rapt groups of children. It’s inevitable that county and city leaders won’t see eye to eye on some issues; they come from different perspectives, in some cases, and serve a different set of constituencies. That makes it all the more important to seize ó or create ó opportunities for cooperative ventures, especially those like the reading initiative that invite communitywide participation. As we enter a new year, where else can city and county officials set aside differences and show the community they’re on the same page?