Page 2 of Passion’s Song

“A Fresh Start doesn’t need to be saved, does it?” Nicole asked. “The program is still in good shape.”

“If it were in such good shape, we wouldn’t be here tonight,” LaDonna pointed out. Their director had called for tonight’s meeting following their first week of operation for this summer’s program. A Fresh Start might not have been in danger of closing as it had been in years past, but the program was definitely in need of help.

“We lost more than two dozen kids from last year,” April said. “It would be one thing if we’d lost them to other summer programs, but Simeon went on a fact-finding mission yesterday and discovered that’s not the case. Right?” April asked him.

He nodded. “Most of them were just hanging out at home, or around the neighborhood.”

“Why didn’t you grab them and make them come back to the center?” Nicole asked.

“Because that would be kidnapping,” Simeon said around a mouthful of pepperoni.

“We can’t force kids to attend A Fresh Start,” April said. “Nor can we make their parents bring them. But we all know the more we keep them occupied and off the streets this summer, the better chance those kids have of staying out of trouble. We have to do something about this retention problem. We can’t keep losing kids during the school year.”

“I think we all know what the best solution is for keeping kids throughout the school year,” LaDonna said with a resigned sigh.

Yes, they all knew. The problem was that expanding A Fresh Start into a year-round program would require more resources than they had at their disposal.

They were lucky enough to have volunteers who viewed the youth program as an essential part of their lives and not just a feel-good hobby they could drop without a moment’s notice. They were a small group, but they were dedicated. However, manpower was only one part of the equation.

“Haven’t we beaten this dead horse enough already?” Simeon said. “We all know that turning A Fresh Start into a year-round program instead of just a summer program would solve much of this problem, but that calls for money. Something we don’t have.”

He was right, and they all knew it. Keeping A Fresh Start open for at least two to three hours in the afternoon, during those hours between when kids were let out of school and when their parents arrived home from work, was a critical component to retaining the kids they’d managed to keep from last summer.

The program, which currently helped more than fifty children from around the neighborhood, relied on donations and creative budgeting to get by. But their anemic bank account barely had enough funds to cover their expenses for the next ten weeks. Stretching that to cover an entire year of programming?

“We have to figure out a way to make this happen,” April said, her voice solemn. “Last summer Demarco Jackson was one of my most promising violinists. I was concerned when I didn’t see him during our first week back. I found out from one of his schoolmates today that Demarco was picked up for truancy four times during the school year, and just got out of juvenile detention for a street fight he was involved in. Thankfully, it didn’t turn more violent than a fistfight, but it could have gotten out of hand and led to something much more deadly.”

April looked into the faces of each of her colleagues.

“I refuse to lose any of these kids to the streets,” she continued with renewed determination. “We have something good going here. We need to make sure it continues to thrive.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Nicole said. “We all know the benefit A Fresh Start brings to the Ninth Ward. But that doesn’t solve the money problem.”

“That’s why we’re here this evening, right?” April said. “We need to figure out how to come up with the funding we need.”

She took a healthy sip from her wineglass, then slid off the sofa and walked over to the whiteboard. Uncapping a dry-erase marker, she scrawled FUND-RAISING across the top and turned to her colleagues.

“Okay,” April said. “Let me have it.”

Her request was met with blank expressions and deafening silence.

April tipped her head back and sighed at the ceiling. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “This cannot be that hard. Just throw out some ideas.”

She wrote bake sale on the whiteboard.

“Really?” came Nicole’s laconic drawl. “You think selling cakes and cookies is going to give us the kind of money we need to turn A Fresh Start into a year-round program?”

“No,” April said. “But this is how you brainstorm. Start with the most obvious and just throw things out there until something sticks.”

“The most obvious is acquiring more benefactors,” Nicole said.

“We’ve hit up our usual donors too much already,” Simeon pointed out. “We have to make this happen ourselves.”

As April captured several of the ideas she, Simeon and Nicole discussed with her dry-erase marker, she noticed LaDonna thumbing through documents in the worn leather messenger bag she always carried around.

“Hello, Ms. Director,” April directed toward LaDonna. “You mind giving a little input?”

Without saying a word, LaDonna slipped a sheaf of papers from the messenger bag and rose from her spot on the couch. She walked over to the whiteboard, picked up the eraser and swiped it back and forth across the list April had written.