Geoffrey Canada: Inspiration for difficult times

by Isiah Anderson

We are at a crucial crossroads when it comes to education. The governor has proposed devastating cuts. The York City School District is struggling with a staggering deficit. As a community and as a state, we are failing our students.

Yet amidst this turmoil, I still believe that York and other communities possess the ingenuity and passion to pull ourselves out of this educational quagmire and create an environment that supports the success of all of its young people.

Recently on this blog, Dan Fink wrote about a theme that is consistent with what we do at 3Cord Inc. Dan wrote about the need for alignment of services among York County organizations to generate collective impact and success in areas of education and human services. This is an idea that we champion. We have the resources here in York County, but we need to work together to leverage existing dollars and align our services so that our children do not fall through the cracks.



Geoffrey Canada, center, surrounded

by students from the Harlem Children's

Zone, the organization he founded

in New York City. Canada will visit

York April 2 to talk about his work

and to offer lessons for York County's

efforts to improve educational

outcomes in the city.

Geoffrey Canada, the founder and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, has created this kind of network in his community. HCZ covers a 97-block area in Harlem that provides services from birth through college to more than 10,000 children. Mr. Canada has worked tirelessly to ensure that children receive the services they need consistently throughout their youth by providing programs for each stage of development including parenting classes, early childhood education, charter schools, health services and college tutoring.

Here is a true hero. Someone who saw a problem, came up with a solution, and pledged to do whatever it takes to ensure that kids are successful. When I began my company and applied for our first charter here in York City, I was charged to research programs that were working and find out how they could be replicated in York. HCZ was one of my first stops. I realized that the same was possible in York, but we do not have access to the same kind of dollars that HCZ does considering their proximity to Wall Street.

Instead, I knew we would need to be creative, that we would need to forge innovative partnerships because we already have many similar services; they are just not connected in a way that reaches all of the youth we serve. We can not only learn from Geoffrey Canada and HCZ, but we can improve upon their model.

I believe in this program so much that 3Cord Inc. has partnered with the YWCA to bring Geoffrey Canada to York on April 2. It is my hope that York’s brightest minds will be in attendance to learn from Mr. Canada and reflect on how we can transform York the way he has changed Harlem. We can do it; in fact, we have to do it. There needs to be a sense of urgency in this town when it comes to education, and I know that we can harness our passion, do the hard work, and make York a place where children not only survive, but thrive.



*

Today is the last day to buy tickets for the April 2 event. Please visit http://www.uicfund.org/legacy-series or call Rijelle Kraft at 717-845-4046, ext. 1405, for details.

Isiah Anderson is the founder and managing officer of 3Cord Inc., an education management organization in York. Founded in 2005, 3Cord’s mission is three-fold: to create and manage charter, alternative-education and private schools that serve urban youth; to deliver cutting-edge solutions to the urban attitude problem rampant in today’s hip-hop culture; and to train professionals to effectively relate to and educate this generation of students. 3Cord oversees three schools in York: New Hope Academy, Challenge Academy, and Impact Academy.