Journal Entries

Miami has a rich tradition of powerful community leadership. Over the years, advocates have successfully tackled homelessness, education, health care and community safety. Additionally, the magic city has led the way in establishing a Children’s Trust, a special district supported by local taxes and entirely dedicated to children.

During our time in South Florida, the Worst To First team toured a world class facility, the United Way Center For Excellence in Early Education. This center is a phenomenal laboratory for cutting edge early learning and has partnerships with fourteen universities including Harvard. On top of running their own exemplary early learning school, the staff trains, certifies and provides resources to early learning schools throughout the region as well.

"Walking across the state can be tiring," said Bud Chiles, as he continued putting one foot in front of the other on his walk through Miami today. When asked about what keeps him marching on, he states, "Florida's kids." At the teams first stop, the Miami Children's Museum, he had ample opportunity to spend time with that motivation; about 50 young children. He bumped into someone special as well, The Cat in the Hat. As one of Dr. Seuss's most beloved storybook characters, The Cat in the Hat stopped by the museum to celebrate his creator's birthday and interact with the children present.

Our schedule of events in Fort Lauderdale started with a presentation to The Children's Services Council of Broward County, a group providing outstanding services to children throughout the county. The CSC is truly making long term investments in children through their care of foster and homeless kids and through the exemplary early education programs they provide. Later on, the United Way hosted a luncheon at the Flite Center with numerous community leaders in attendance.

Our second day in Tampa started with a tour of A Brighter Community, Inc. , a preschool and early education center. This organization, founded in 1925, has served four generations of Tampa's kids, is nationally accredited, serves 400 meals a day and has the fourth highest prekindergarten readiness scores of any in the state. What a program and what a partnership with United Way and the City of Tampa.

After touring A Brighter Community, fifty kids from the program walked with me to the Library where I had the chance to read to them. After finishing up, the kids returned to their preschool and I headed out to Ybor City, logging an additional six miles as I walked on through.

How great it was to have my mother and chairwoman of the Lawton Chiles Foundation, Rhea Chiles, join us in Tampa. At USF's Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center, the venue chosen for our awards luncheon, she came to present prizes to the Pasco High students from Dade City who won the Worst To First education video competition. In addition to those receiving awards, a number of community leaders and some elected officials, like Commissioner Kevin Bechner, attended as well. The Commissioner led an important discussion regarding the need for juvenile justice reform in Florida and in particular, Hillsborough County. With the highest teen incarceration rate in the state and the associated costs of incarceration in the hundred millions, the Commissioner reiterated that the need for reform is intense. The priority to stop spending tax dollars on failure and start investing them in success seems an easy decision to make.

After attending FPN’s (Florida Philantrophic Network)annual meeting, Worst To First got back on the road, picking up where we left off along the I-4 corridor. As I strapped on my walking boots and marched south from Orlando to Kissimmee, I was thankful for a cool and sunny day, ideal for my planned eight mile walk, and for the sidewalk that ran almost the entire length of my route.

In the late afternoon, I reached the Boys and Girls Club of Central Florida, the Osceola branch. The old club, located on a dirt road adjacent to a cow pasture, gives no hint externally of what goes on inside; character building and human empowerment. Our tour guide, a 16-year old teenager named Akin, was a perfect and powerful example of the moral fiber being built into the kids who attend.

Today, it felt like summer as I walked from Haines City on Route 27 west towards Winter Haven. It felt fantastic to be back in my hometown area, Imperial Polk County! During this leg of my trip, I spent some time with a photographer from the Winter Haven News Chief and then made good time walking past orange groves and many of the beautiful lakes this part of Central Florida has become known for. After six and a half miles of highway, we grabbed some lunch and headed for a TV show taping in Tampa. Arriving back in Tallahassee after midnight, I realized it had been another long but great day on the road.

A beautiful central Florida day started with a Channel 13 TV interview and then a five mile walk through Winter Park south of downtown Orlando. After the walk, we received a warm welcome from United Way, The Orange County Healthy Start Coalition and Jewish Family Services, not to mention the kids we interacted with at Orlando Day Nursery. I couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.

After visiting Orlando Day Nursery, 50 kids joined me in a jaunt around Lake Dot. As we walked, several advocates and media professionals accompanied us.

Some of the advocates we spent time with, people like Linda Sutherland, Karen Broussard and Dick Batchelor, helped me to better understand this part of Florida as regards children's service groups. In particular, I learned that Orlando and the surrounding area is the largest part of Florida without a dedicated funding source for children.

Our time on the road this past week was significant for me in many ways. We started in Deland, at the Florida Museum of Art. Jennifer Coolidge, the Executive Director, assembled a strong group of community leaders to show the Worst To First team what a powerful educational and cultural asset the museum has become, a true statewide treasure. As I listened to the group, I came to a deeper conviction about the FCAT and what I believe to be the devastating impact the “FCAT is all” approach is having on our children, in terms of critical thinking and problem solving. The arts, physical education, history and civics have all virtually been forsaken in the stampede for memorization. Though accountability must live on as one aspect of an evaluation process, I believe it is time for the FCAT to go away.

Sometimes you get surprised. My surprise came yesterday in the form of Marions United, a progressive movement for educational change. In a fairly conservative county like Marion County, I was astonished to find a coalition of concerned teachers, parents, students and others fighting for a stronger, more effective public education system. This group, now boasting 1,000 members, organized a three mile walk for us in west Ocala with the help of Progress Florida’s Ray Seamen. Many folks joined us in our march for awareness about the true state of education in Florida.