Shuffle Ball Change
By Cathe Dykstra
When I was a little girl I took tap dance lessons. I had a special case to carry my tap shoes and a basket on my bike to hold the case as I rode to the school where my teacher was waiting for me. I wasn’t spectacular; heck, I wasn’t even good. I was the chubbiest eight-year old in the bunch – bigger, taller, clumsier, and with an odd habit of not being able to “buffalo” across the room without my fingers twitching. Not the prodigy that my teacher had in mind. I am sure that she longed for the day that I either improved (unlikely) or failed to show up on my Schwinn Flying Star ready to give it another try.
My bike was another thing. Santa brought it the year that I was six. In order to help Santa out, my mom and dad purchased it in the box and stored it in the shed until Christmas Eve when my dad began assembling it. When I learned this later, it explained a lot of things – like why my dad got so grumpy when the handlebars came off (again) and why my sister got to pick out her fully-assembled Schwinn the following year. I loved my bike with its banana seat, monkey handlebars, big sissy bar in the back and loads of streamers. Occasionally, I put playing cards in the spokes or made crepe paper flowers to show that I was, at eight years of age, a flower child.
I also took piano lessons but I would like to leave it at that. My mom is still disappointed and I am still bitter.
While this short list of hobbies doesn’t begin to compare with the current sport and hobby opportunities for young people or even my daughter’s Brownie Troop, youth YMCA basketball team, horseback riding lessons or indoor field hockey league activities, it does convey that my family had some discretionary income that allowed me to try new things.
It all comes back to education. We see that in every aspect of the Greater Louisville Project reports. And personal stories bear this out too. My parents were both first-generation college graduates, which meant that as the second generation, my sister and I grew up KNOWING that we would go to college just not where. We were reminded regularly of the opportunities that we had because of my dad’s job which was because of his college degree. When he went back for his master’s degree and needed help from me with the “new math,” it was another opportunity to talk about why education mattered.
Families in our community who live in poverty don’t often send little girls to tap dance lessons. They worry about how they are going to afford school supplies. They worry about keeping a roof over their heads. They worry about a lot of things.
Sometimes that cycle of poverty is broken and most often it is because of education. And then, as in my family the bar is set higher for the second generation. In families above the poverty line but beyond eligibility for public supports like welfare programs, discretionary income is still limited or elusive. Getting by takes precedence over saving to get ahead.
Poverty rates and area median income are strong indicators of the well-being of a community. High poverty rates and low median incomes do not affect only the people whose incomes put them in these categories; they affect everyone in the community. I believe the old saying is that a rising tide lifts all boats. The opposite is true also – low tides ground most every vessel. Take a look at the peer city charts for median income and educational attainment among working age adults in the 2010 Competitive City Report. You’ll find Raleigh in first place on both. You’ll find Louisville is 9th on the former and 10th on the latter. We can do better and it all starts with wanting to.
As a community, we should want our less fortunate residents to have opportunities to improve their situation because we care about them as people and as families. I hope you feel that way. Yet, we should also want everyone in our community to realize their potential because it is good for Louisville now and in the future. The next time you are asked to donate school supplies for a child in need, see it for the opportunity that it is to invest in the education, future income and well-being of our next generation and of our community. And if asked, give a little extra to help a child get a bike or some tap shoes.
Cathe Dykstra serves as President and CEO of Family Scholar House but sees herself as the Chief Possibility Officer for the organization and for the single-parent college students who are lifting their families out of poverty and setting examples for their children by earning their college degrees. She never played in Little League but is an avid baseball fanatic. Cathe rarely tap dances in the literal sense and all of her bikes are stationary; but, she knows that college and these extra-curricular opportunities had an impact on her development and she wants similar chances for community children to explore their dreams.