Teachers, parents, professional experts, entertainers and students concerned with the distribution of information, materials and training necessary to build strong families and enhance the quality of life for children all came together for the first Parents Expo at Gov. George Clinton Elementary School in Poughkeepsie on Saturday, May 31.
Individual workshops focusing on housing, finances, parents’ rights, health insurance, nutrition, employment, domestic violence, gang violence, parental empowerment and many other positive and negative concerns were followed by message-centered, positive attitude entertainment that reinforced the general empowerment theme of the day.
“Several individuals in the community have always talked about how we could improve parent involvement in the nurturing of their children,” said Clinton School Principal Nadine Jackson-Ivey, explaining the origins of the event. “We thought one way could be to provide the type of services parents might need. We identified services by categories: health/nutrition, legal services, financial support, juvenile services, and voter registration. After soliciting community agencies, we found they were interested. It was a match made in heaven.”
The scope of the opportunities and pitfalls lying before today’s children was represented by the variety of those agencies: Black Executives of Mid-Hudson Valley, Market America &7 Credit Reporting, the U.S. Marine Corps, Black Child Development Institute, Sisters Network, Planned Parenthood, the Poughkeepsie Police Department Juvenile Division and the Office of Probation. Yet over and over again, the message was put out that children can avoid the pitfalls and become all they can be.
“Whatever you set out to achieve, I know you’re going to achieve it,” actress Jo Marie Peyton of television’s “Family Matters” told one of the many small gatherings of students she spoke to during the day. “When someone says you can’t do something, take it with a grain of salt. But when you do achieve it, be sure to share it with others. What good is having anything unless you share it with people? And remember that if you worship money, you worship a false god – anyone can be rich. What makes you, you is your conscience, your talent, your self-esteem.”
Singer Jacky Clark Chisholm of the famous Clark Sisters group was also on hand to provide similarly inspiring messages to parents.
“What they see us do and say, they will do and say,” she said. “Remember that you are their first role model, and you can be a positive one that offsets any negative influences.”
Jackie Clyburn, a parent who has taken that message to heart to the extent of founding the Sister-to-Sister and Brother-to-Brother mentoring programs at Poughkeepsie High School, was there with her son, and was pleased with the event.
“It was just excellent,” she told the Beat. “It opened my eyes to a lot of programs that the community offers. I especially appreciated a workshop I attended on gang violence given by Lorenzo Steel, a retired corrections officer. His warnings about how today’s hip-hop culture can lead to a negative lifestyle were very powerful.”
Linda Melton-Mann, the youth empowerment school coordinator of the City of Poughkeepsie Police Juvenile Division, who was one of the organizers of Parents Expo 2008, was also well-pleased with the outcome.
“It went very well,” she told the Beat. “Parents are concerned about not being able to empower their children. We’re trying to keep children off the streets, and at the same time safeguard them from other dangers, like predators on the Internet. We wanted to give parents as much information as possible, and we succeeded. And most important of all, it was well-attended.”
“Our children are our future, and we need to arm them with parents who can stand before them informed and ready for any challenge,” concluded Jackson-Ivey. “This project is just the beginning of an idea that should take birth and grow in our community.”