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As Ohio families get ready to send their children back to school, I can’t help but reflect on how our society treats its youngest members. What long-term impact will our education and childcare systems have on future generations? A study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that children in the United States score less proficiently on education exams than numerous other developed countries. Much speculation and research surround this issue, including the importance of cognitive development during the first few years of life.

The famous psychologist, Jean Piaget, explained that child’s play is not just fun, it is an important part of their brain development. Other studies validate Piaget’s statement, showing that the first years of a child’s life determine the trajectory of their cognitive, emotional and interpersonal issues.

We must then ask ourselves how this impacts the cognitive development of economically-disadvantaged children with limited access to early childhood education. Unfortunately, the answer is not surprising. A recent study by Child Trends found that underprivileged children typically lag behind other children as young as nine months old. Those of us working toward improving the viability of low-income communities should be particularly mindful of this staggering information.

So what can be done in Ohio to ensure all children have access to opportunity? For one, we can invest in improving childcare. We cannot subject young children to emotional anorexia and expect their cognitive skills to develop effectively. A study from the National Center for Early Development & Learning found that quality child care was critical in ensuring that a child is ready for elementary school both cognitively and behaviorally. Essentially, child-teacher bonds formed in the childcare classroom prepare children for their future education.

We must make providing access to early childhood centers in our communities a priority. Both funding and resources are available to make this a reality. For example, Finance Fund had the pleasure of helping to fund the first and only early childhood center in Noble County. The Noble Learning Center had struggled for some time to find a stable location, operating out of rented apartments and struggling to keep its lease. Through creative funding, the Noble Learning Center was able to reclaim a vacant building and now operates as the four-county region’s only licensed childcare center. Projects like these improve opportunities for children in our communities to fully engage in their education.

As you begin to see school buses and school playgrounds fill with children, take a moment to ask yourself an important question. What can you do to ensure that all children are provided with the opportunity to learn and ultimately succeed? It’s imperative to our future.

We all come naked from the womb, but most of us do not stay that way. Yet again I am amazed at the rhetoric flying about the airwaves and the halls of congress concerning the Shangri-La or inferno of revamping the U.S. health care system. It’s not the topic that is disconcerting but how the opinion of the American public is so easily swayed by any titillating story, whether true or false, and how easily we are lured away for meaningful debate into the afternoon soap opera. My example is not taken to focus on any one point of view because the tactic is used by all sides of the issue.

On the radio show hosted by former Sen. Fred Thompson, New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey stated that the House’s proposed health care bill contained a provision that would institute mandatory counseling sessions telling seniors how “to do what’s in society’s best interest…and cut your life short.” Citing page 425 of the bill, McCaughey claimed that “the Congress would make it mandatory … that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care … all to do what’s in society’s best interest … and cut your life short.”

Here’s what the bill says, “An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.” The accepted definition of end-of-life planning means thinking ahead about the care you would like to receive at the end of your life – which may include the choice to reject extraordinary measures of life support, or the choice to embrace them.  The section would require Medicare to pay for, not mandate, some end-of-life planning counseling sessions with a health care practitioner once every 5 years. It is clear that McCaughey’s distorted interpretation of the content of page 425 was offered not to stimulate debate but to frame an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

Several television ads sponsored by Patients United Now claim that Canadian citizens survived serious illness only by leaving the country to get treatment in the U.S. because of the length of their wait for service in the Canadian health care system, claiming “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.” The reality is that no one is advocating for a government run health care system. The president and the leaders of both parties resound with the words of Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of Finance Committee, “single-payer (government run health care) is not going to get even to first base.” Yet the ads continue for what purpose? Not to stimulate debate but to frame an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

There was a time in this country that I can remember when someone or some group publically making a misstatement or an outright lie, the journalistic community would stand up on their hind legs and demand accountability, and there was an American public that had not abdicated their role in the republic and given place to apathy believing everything we are fed. Naked again.

Breaking Ground on Close to Home III

When our program team met Sharon Hartwig and Charlie Kunkel, co-owners of St. Lawrence O’Toole Gardens, we were inspired by their dream of reclaiming a vacant, historic building for their community.  We’re proud to announce that dream came one step closer to reality last Friday when Lawrence County’s only assisted living center to be called Close to Home III, broke ground on the site of the old St. Lawrence O’Tool Community Center.

Upon completion, Close to Home III will create 30 new jobs.

“Finding a new use for this important historic building is a point of pride for the Ironton community,” Charlie told me. “Lawrence County has needed an assisted living facility for quite some time. We look forward to bringing this new resource to the region.”

The Close to Home III project will rehabilitate the now vacant St. Lawrence O’ Toole Community Center, originally built in 1910 as the St. Lawrence School. Its owners, St. Lawrence O’Toole Gardens, will build a 8,316-square-foot addition and making structural and sidewalk improvements. Of the 30 positions created by the project, 16 will be filled by individuals of low or moderate income.

Finance Fund partnered with the developers at St. Lawrence O’Toole Gardens, LLC by providing $2.7 million in New Markets Tax Credits funding. Also funding this project were the Ohio Department of Development, with a $500,000 grant from the Community Development Block Grant Economic Development Program, and a loan from the Huntington, West Virginia-Ironton, Ohio Empowerment Zone, Inc.

We also thank the Ironton Tribune for their nice story about the event.  You can read it here.

As my week in DC is winding up I wanted to share some exciting information with you.

The morning of June 17th, I sat eagerly listening to Chairman Bernanke give a speech that substantially focused on Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI). Please check out the Chairman’s speech, as he gives his thoughts about CDFI lenders and the challenges they face in the current economic and financial environment.

When I first heard this line from “Help!”  the Beatles 1965 song by John Lennon, I had graduated from High School and was poised to meet life head on. Full of vim and vigor and not much else, the first lines of the song were probably more suited to what was in store. “Help, I need somebody, Help, not just anybody, Help, you know I need someone, help.”

Interestingly, the Beatles song has been reinvented by several artists, and a quick Google search produced a myriad of applications of the sentiment. Yesterday I sat next to Bobbie Garber, Community Research Partners, at the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing’s Partners Luncheon. We talked about the way life constantly changes and how the challenge is not only keeping up with it, but preparing for it. Over the years we have both observed and experienced how organizations strategically address change. Some Don’t Ever Change but expect their model and mission are strong enough to stem the tide. Others are so focused on the task at hand that the idea of strategic examination is met with the same response,  “Don’t Bother Me”. Gone are the days of Long, Long, Long processes of strategic planning that specifically define goals and objectives, typically outdated by the time of completion.

So, How do you do it? Most critical thinking in this area talks about framing strategy around the inevitability of change and getting ready to adapt to whatever happens. I’ve included a list of some books espousing these ideas, and From Me to You none of them advocate doing away with strategic planning but simply make our planning more strategic. As a matter of fact, one recent book “The Momentum Effect” (J.C. Larreche) suggests that many successful businesses do very little strategic planning in the typical definition but thrive on experience, a good sense of the market, and an ability to quickly adapt to change. It is my observation that this is the approach of many of the businesses in the community revitalization industry. They just Act Naturally and do what needs to be done relying on innovation, perseverance, and sometimes just plain dumb luck to make things happen.

Groups like Vistula Management Company from Toledo continue to reinvent themselves over the years for the benefit of their beneficiary families. John Kiely from Vistula recently sent me a letter after attending Finance Fund’s Annual Reception in which he reminisced about the connection we have had over the years and sent copies of correspondence highlighting more than a decade of continued dedication to serving low-income Toledo neighborhoods. John talked about “memories of when we were both much younger (than today) and had a great deal of enthusiasm for creating low-income housing in Ohio.” It is my observation that the enthusiasm has not diminished and simply has yet again blossomed in innovation. Let It Be known that If I Fell prey to waning passion you will Tell Me What You See, because In My Life since that 1965 Beatles song, I have seen the answer to the Help reprise. We have an active industry of helpers and I Feel Fine.