What follows is a column I wrote last April for a national publication called Youth Today. I just found out that unbeknownst to me, YT nominated this column for an award at the American Society of Business Publication Editors (I know, I never heard of them either) and I took the silver. Nice surprise, and now I even have a plaque to prove it, propped up against a wall in my office. Hope you like this:

Youth Today arrived the other day, and as I do every year with this particular issue, I flipped right to the “pork” pages – those listing the earmark recipients in the field of youth services. I skipped ahead to the “V” states – Vermont, because that is where my organization is located, (although I knew we wouldn’t be listed; the last time we received a federal earmark was 2002, for $147,000) but also Virginia, the home state of America’s Promise.

And there it was, once again, America’s Promise, with a $5 million earmark. Last year I made the mistake of opening the February issue of Youth Today in front of one of my senior staff members. “Those ___________s,” I blurted out, (insert your own epithet) and then, realizing what I had said, immediately apologized to this person. “No need,” she replied, “I agree with you.” This year I wisely read the paper in the privacy of my office.

It is hard not to be resentful of America’s Promise. Spectrum Youth and Family Services, where I am executive director, has a budget of almost $4 million, with approximately 40 different revenue sources. The revenue streams are on different fiscal years, each with its own arcane requirements, and with numerous fiscal and programmatic reports to complete. And most of the time we have to compete against other nonprofits for grant renewals. It would sure be nice to have that one big fat lump sum earmark grant such as the one America’s Promise receives each year.

The other pill that is hard to swallow is the reality that several of the grants we have are federal ones. We have one $200,000 FSBY grant which we use to support our transitional living residence for homeless teens. We started receiving it in 1994, yet it has not increased one penny in all those years, despite the fact that all our costs have increased substantially during the last 12 years. We have a second FSBY grant, $100,000, which supports our outreach efforts to youth who are living on the street. Same deal though – it started in 1996, and has never increased. And we have to re-apply for these FSBY grants every three years, requiring a mountain of paperwork and hundreds of staff hours, all the time hoping and praying we will be selected again.

We also receive some federal Medicaid money to support our work with homeless teens. Last year this wasn’t level-funded; it was reduced. We were also receiving federal JUMP dollars for our mentoring program. It wasn’t level-funded, it wasn’t reduced, it ended.

But America’s Promise gets $5 million. And to do what? Well, it was hard to pick up a newspaper this past September without reading about their release of “The 100 Best Communities for Young People in America.” Now THAT is ground-breaking youth work that will surely make a difference for the army of young people in this nation who are homeless, without families, jobless, and without a high school diploma. In fact, I may run over to our 12-bed shelter tonight (it is bone-cold in Vermont in February, so I am sure it will be full) and let them in on the news: “Hey everyone – your worries are over! America’s Promise has produced this list! Nashville, Old Town, Long Beach – this is where you should be living, start packing now!” (Unfortunately, no Vermont city or town made the list, otherwise they could stay in-state.)

I’ve been working with at-risk and disconnected youth for 25 years, and one of the first and best supervisors I ever had warned me, “There is a huge baloney factor (he used another term) in this field. You are going to run into many organizations claiming to do all kinds of wonderful things to help troubled youth. The reality is that very few are doing much of substance.” He was so right.

Mark Redmond

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