FIVE MILLION KIDS Talk - Blog

 HOPE’s youngest Youth Council member, 8^th grader Carlos Pardo, divides his time between school, work and interning at HOPE World Headquarters. Youth Council member, Carlos Pardo, divides his time between school, work and interning at HOPE World Headquarters. 

Carlos believes that kids, as well as mentors, play an important role in helping each other to move on. “When a kid hears an adult say something, it’s one thing, but when they hear it from another kid; that’s powerful.” Carlos believes the key is helping each other. (Click here to hear his message.) 

A born optimist, it is his nature to help others. Carlos served as President of the Youth Bible Class at Iglesias Servios De Dios, the church where he was christened at birth, and where he continues in a leadership role mentoring youth. Carlos is looking forward to graduation from Foshay Middle School in June, where he is in college prep classes. He is part of the USC MESA Engineer School program designed to help exceptional students. In March he was honored in a Pin & Ribbon Ceremony for his outstanding grades and deportment. 

He likes to make art and is a member of Room 13, the advanced Art class at Foshay. He is a cadet and plays Chess so well that he has been school champ three times over. He is also a former member of the Robotics Club. 

Carlos hopes that his involvement on the 5MK Youth Council will result in more students taking an active role in their education.  His plans include making recommendations on what kinds of activities we can create to get kids excited about learning.  

In order to get our youth re-engaged in school and live with the personal dignity that comes with knowing that they CAN succeed in life, we need YOU. Get involved in the 5MK movement to help keep the kids in your community engaged in education. Visit 5MK and make your own unique pledge.

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Morgan Arthur

5MK is proud to present the first Youth Advisory Council Member, Morgan Arthur.

Morgan is a high-school junior in Chicago and is an honor roll student who participates in many extracurricular activities including athletics, band, and speech team. Her diverse activities combined with her broadened view of the world have created a well-rounded individual determined to make a difference. She truly believes that education offers access to a wider range of opportunities, including a fuller life and greater career opportunities.  Hear why she thinks HOPE’s mission to “Make Smart Sexy Again” is critical to the aspirations of youth today.

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John Hope Bryant

This is reason to be inspired that there is not only HOPE, but a PLAN for our kids. Read this piece, on 10,000 Hours, inspired by TIPPING POINT and Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell.

Onward with HOPE,

John Hope Bryant

5MK Youth Spokesman Dalton Sherman and John Hope Bryant

Earlier this month I was honored to meet the great Dalton Sherman, the amazing and inspiring young man from Texas, who energies a crowd of 20,000 plus on the 5MK homepage. Check it out! Well, Daltion also attended our annual Operation HOPE board retreat, where he inspired and energied all who were present.  If young Dalton is an example of our youth, and the potential to turn them around and to create star leaders for the future, then I am hopeful indeed!  Talk about 5 MILLION KIDS. Spread the word. Share. Let us know what you think.

One person can change the world. Be that one person.

John Hope Bryant

P.S. The t-shirt Dalton and I have on says “one child drops out of high school every 26 seconds.”

John Hope Bryant speaks to youth at B.E.S.T Academy in Atlanta, Georgia

With the possible exception of the founding of Operation HOPE itself some 16 years ago in South Central Los Angeles, immediately following the Rodney King Riots here, none of my life’s work has inspired me more, or feels more vitally important, and relevant in the challenging yet hope filled times ahead of us, than the “big idea” at Operation HOPE we now call 5 MILLION KIDS, or 5MK in HOPE short-hand (www.5MK.org).

5MK is nothing short of our bold, national strategy to “help break the back of the high-school drop-out epidemic in America,” and to inspire our youth, particularly our urban youth, to re-imagine their possibilities, to take their lives back, to empower themselves with options in life, and to realize their God given potential.  My personal hero and HOPE global spokesman Ambassador Andrew Young once told me that you could never have a (silver rights) movement, without young people. Well, 5MK is that movement.

According to recent nationwide studies, the high school drop-out rate amongst all young people is 30% nationwide, and in urban, inner city and under-served communities it hovers between 50-75%. This is very troubling for the nation, and an economic death sentence for America’s under-served. My new friend Marguerite Kondracke, president and CEO of America’s Promise, said to me recently, “if we are not careful, the next group of underperforming assets we will have to deal with will be our children.”

Something must be done. We believe that children are dropping out of high school because they don’t see education as relevant to their future. We also believe that the best way to make education “relevant” to their future is to show children how to get rich, legally through financial literacy; the language of money, free enterprise capitalism, and ownership. For children with an unfortunate public record, no matter how smart they are may find it difficult in the short term to pass a standard background check at a major corporation. In such instances, the viable option for them may be “entrepreneurship.”

According to another mentor of mine, 5MK national co-chair Quincy Jones, it takes 20 years to change a culture. Well, over the past 20 years we have made dumb sexy. Over the next 20 years we must make smart sexy again.

The Five Million Kids Initiative is a focused and coordinated national effort to invest in America’s human capital – our youth and our families, in low-wealth communities – to re-brand education, and to “Make Smart Sexy” again.

5MK is co-chaired nationally by icons Quincy Jones and Ambassador Andrew Young, our first 5MK HOPE Corps Volunteer is U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral, and our first 5MK Community Co-Chairs are Reverend Dr. Cecil “Chip” Murray, the peace maker and legendary community builder who held Los Angeles together following the Rodney King Riots, and none other than Vice Admiral David Brewer, superintendent and chief for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in America.

5MK will be formally launched, on-the-ground in Los Angeles and in cities across America, early in 2009, but you can take peak at 5MK highlights beginning today. Track our progress, share your vision, get involved, organize a 5MK solution in your community, neighborhood or street, or simply make a 5MK Pledge of your own design, at www.5MK.org.

One person can make a difference. Be…that one person.

Onward with HOPE,
John Hope Bryant
Founder, Chairman and CEO
Operation HOPE

High school isn’t easy for any kid.  I’m sure we can all remember a time when we looked down and wished our feet weren’t so big or that we had a “cooler” pair of shoes.

Whether we thought our peers considered us to be the popular kid or the nerd, shyest or most outgoing, sporty or arty, least or most likely to “succeed”; we definitely wondered what the other kids thought.  Kids haven’t changed that much.  Rich or poor, black, white, Latino or Asian, kids are still kids.  Fashion, slang and “cool” have changed, but really, at the end of the day, they’re having the same experiences we did.

So, what’s different?

Why does 1 child drop out of high school every 26 seconds?

Why are 30% of our kids in this country dropping out of high school?  Why are 40 to 75% of of kids in our urban communities dropping out?  Why are half of all African-American boys dropping out of high school?

Here’s what we know:

• For too many kids the mental connection between getting an education and their own financial success and stability has not been clearly drawn.
• In too many communities and I dare say, in the popular media, the message sent to our kids is that being smart does NOT = being cool.
• In almost all of our communities and certainly in the popular media, the message has been repeated over and over again that being cool = having bling (stuff: expensive cars, designer jeans, haute couture hand bags, platinum & diamond jewelry, make-up, sneakers, you know the drill).

We also know:

• Our kids need to meet and interact with adult role models that can serve as examples to them of what they can become.
• Our kids need to receive more messages from the people around them, in their everyday lives, about their own innate & inner beauty and how to attain & exude personal dignity, than they receive about outer beauty and how to chase the proverbial, moving target known as “cool”.
• Our kids need to know the facts:
• That education is directly related to income
• That it is possible for each and every one of them to graduate high school, to go to college and to get rich (or at least become self-sufficient), legally.
• That proper management of the money you do make will significantly improve the quality of your life, over the course of your life.
• That we care about them.

Our kids need you.  They can’t do this by themselves.

And the best part?  It doesn’t require much.  A couple days a year at most.  Your time.  Your energy.  That’s all it will take to stop this epidemic.

Be the person that touches a life and stops him or her from dropping out of high school 26 seconds from … NOW.

…25, 24, 23, 22, 21

…the clock is ticking

…call now to get involved: 213.891.2900.

Emily Ausbrook
Senior Vice President and 5MK Campaign Manager