Our Youth are such a strong asset in this country

All the time I am hearing stories about the youth of America that emphasize things not good. And, being the Pollyanna I am, I wonder where these people who tell those stories so incessantly live. I generally see Youth doing fantastic things and this week and next in Hartsville we have concrete evidence.

Today is Friday, June 25, 2010. The temperature is hovering between 94 and 101 as I write these words from an air-conditioned office. And, as I write 118 high school students and about 40 advisors are over on Heatly Drive in Hartsville erecting three (3) Habitat for Humanity homes. I tell you when you watch two young girls helped by two young guys lift a wall and put it in place you have a perspective on youth that burns into your gut. That happened just a few minutes ago and will happen all afternoon. The kids are leading the effort. The kids are doing they work. They are supervised, but the leadership is obviously student centered. Amy, whom I had the chance to meet is 17 a co-chair this year. "I can't wait until next year, when I can be the chair of the project," she said. She is a rising senior at her high school.

Here is the note Mark Haenchen, executive director of the Darlington County Habitat for Humanity sent out earlier this week about the project:

Hartsville is about to be invaded by Severna Park, Maryland's WoodsWork. A group of 120 youth and 42 advisors are coming to build 3 Habitat homes and finish a 4th home started by UUCC last week. They will be here one week, then their college age allumni will be here (32 of them) to put siding and sheetrock on the homes.
To imagine the size of this group, they would fill our movie theater. It takes half a semi truck load of food to feed them, and they are ordering 80 large pizza's for dinner the evening they arrive.
Construction of the homes will begin Friday at 1211 Myrtle St. and all along Heatley Dr. between Arbor Dr. and Security Dr. Come out and watch this crew in action. It is amazing what these high school students can do in a week.

Habitat a magnet for volunteers

Habitat for Humanity of Darlington County has one of the most active building programs in South Carolina and maybe in the country. Mark Hanechen, executive director, reports that this week Hartsville is going to be invaded by a force of more than 120 high school students from Maryland helping to build three more houses and finish a fourth that was begun last week by students from the Unitarian United Church of Charlotte. Here is part of Mark's note about this group coming to Hartsville:

Hartsville is about to be invaded by Severna Park, Maryland's WoodsWork. A group of 120 youth and 42 advisors are coming to build 3 Habitat homes and finish a 4th home started by UUCC last week. They will be here one week, then their college-age alumni will be here (32 of them) to put siding and sheetrock on the homes.
To imagine the size of this group, they would fill our movie theater. It takes half a semi truck load of food to feed them, and they are ordering 80 large pizza's for dinner the evening they arrive


The Hartsville First Presbyterian has also committed to building a Habitat house and this group, which provides homes for people who will put in the time to help in the building and some funds to buy the home makes homeowners of people who otherwise might not have been able to BUY.

Check out Darlington County Habitat for Humanity, their resale store, and all of the projects they have ongoing.

Community Garden

In an earlier post I commented on the Hartsville Community Garden that has been started as the brain child of Nancy Myers and moved forward with her energy and the assistance of a significant number of people. This photo link will take you to a web show of how this miracle is producing

Going the Distance with Kendyl Seawright / CokerCobras.com

Going the Distance with Kendyl Seawright / CokerCobras.com

this is a blog posting from Kendyl, one of Coker's cross country runners and a very familiar runner around Hartsville because she is on the road so much at many different times of the day that lots of people who drive by really do feel like they know her. Kendyl, who is from New Jersey, is staying in Hartsville this summer and this is an interesting story of one workout.

Primary election day and most say, "What?"

...and those who are not saying what are often saying, "what's the use," and that leaves often a minority of us voting. In his weekly blog today, Rich Hardwood discusses some of the antipathy of voters. In addition, he gives an idea or two about how to start reversing this antipathy. It is his idea that sparked the thought of this post.

Harwood says we need to do something disruptive to the the business as usual. He then says we need to take that narrative and get people to hear it, to discuss it and to think how they can become part of the positive disruption.

I am a bit of a polyanna but I was thinking that Hartsville has a variety of narratives that are disruptive to the 'business as usual' types of activities that are angering voters here and around the country. We have some narratives that need to get more of a hearing.

Narratives like the Team Foxes Learning Academy -- an effort by the Hartsville Middle School partially funded by a grant from The Byerly Foundation to help turn around students who have a history of not succeeding in school.

Or, in another vein it could be the individual and team effort that is going into the production of the Hartsville Idol event on summer Saturday evenings in downtown Hartsville. A few thousand enjoyed the event this past Saturday.

The narrative could be a combination of stories of people in the Hartsville community like Nancy Myers and Teresa Mack, who make things happen like the Hartsville Community Market and the growing Community Garden or the South Hartsville Community Association.

And, the narrative might be the amazing work being done in the Darlington County community with very active of building Habitat for Humanity for homes. Now we have multiple homes going up regularly when only a couple of years ago it was one or so a year.The idea for narratives can go on but you can begin to see there are disruptions to the status quo and these "disruptions" can give us something to continue building on as we start setting forth a vision to put Hartsville at the top of the list of small cities that people want to live in.