After this week’s CivicCon, the Pensacola News Journal has become a true believer in the Escambia Children’s Trust, announcing a feature series of profiles on the programs the Trust has funded. The title of the article on the CivicCon presentation is “With 5,000 kids served, Escambia Children’s Trust is ‘absolutely’ making a difference.” Five thousand children in five years, an average of 1,000 annually for its first five years. Wow!
Earworm
But there could be a problem. For me, statistics are earworms, like catchy song lyrics for others (“Oh, Mickey, you’re so fine” or “Never Gonna Give You Up”). They eat at my subconscious when they sound too good to be true.
- According to Escambia School Superintendent Keith Leonard and the Trust, Escambia County has about 16,000 children living in poverty. This means that the Trust is helping nearly one out of every three children living in poverty – 31%. Really?
Maybe the 5,000 stat is true. After all, the News Journal is the nation’s largest newspaper chain and has the resources to verify the statistic, but the taxpayers deserve more objective analysis, which is the point of my Outtakes column, “The Need for Data.”
CivicCon: Inside the Escambia Children’s Trust Impact
I watched the Tuesday evening meeting and saw 10 local nonprofits take the stage to demonstrate how Escambia Children’s Trust funding is making a difference in the lives of children across our community.
Boys & Girls Club
Boys & Girls Club CFO Leslie Mickles emphasized that their program is far from a simple childcare solution. “It’s not a daycare at all’ by far. Kids don’t run around, do whatever they want to do. It’s a very structured program.” The organization employs certified Florida teachers and maintains a legal agreement with the school district to track grades, attendance, and behavior. They have exceeded their proposed enrollment by 240%, serving children from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with a comprehensive approach that includes academics, character development, and workforce preparation.
Children’s Home Society: Children’s Home Society Executive Director Leah Harrison shared remarkable progress at C.A. Weis Elementary, located in zip code 32505—an area previously marked by high crime and poverty. Through their SAIL Academy after-school program, they’re now serving 100 students, representing 20% of the school population. The results are striking: “Just this past school year, the SAIL Academy, if we put it to DOE standards, was one point away from an A.”
Chain Reaction: Chain Reaction’s Kristen Fairchild focused on the community’s most vulnerable teenagers—those facing poverty, trauma, and school disengagement. Her team works with students who “don’t play sports, they’re not in any clubs, and they aren’t even thinking about college. They’re just trying to survive their day.” Despite significant challenges, the program achieved remarkable growth: post-secondary enrollment jumped from one student in year one to 22 in year two.
Dixon School of Arts and Sciences: Principal Dr. Kevin Kovac highlighted how musical theater training builds essential life skills. With 54% of students showing significant growth in reading and math, and participants missing two fewer school days than their peers, the program demonstrates that “this is the power of the arts.” Students have completed seven productions and two dance intensives, with many spreading their wings to auditions for other community programs.
CMB Visions: Founder Chandra Burgess returned to Pensacola’s east side to address “pockets of poverty.” After discovering “how many parents had to leave their job to go pick up their child from school,” CMB Visions provides free transportation, certified teachers, and nutritious meals. The program “expanded so fast that we had to do a second location” while supporting families with utility bills, groceries, and mental health referrals—”cultivating minds of brilliance.”
James B. Washington Education and Sports: Coach Benny Washington uses basketball as a gateway to academic success in high-crime communities like Haynes Street and Gonzales Court. “You don’t have the grades, you don’t play,” Washington firmly states. His program requires a 2.5 GPA and mandatory tutoring for struggling students.
Omega Lamplighters: William Glee represents this mentorship program focused on transforming young men through their four pillars: leadership, academics, maturity, and perseverance. “The whole focus, the aim was to take good young men, make ’em into great young men,” Glee explained. Since receiving ECT funding, they’ve expanded from 35 high school participants to over 135 young men across elementary, middle, and high school. Impressively, “100% of the seniors of this last class” are heading to college, with 90% of parents expressing satisfaction with their sons’ growth.
Pensacola Children’s Chorus: Executive Director Alex Gartner emphasized that their program goes far beyond entertainment. “We know that the performing arts, when deployed in just the right way, are powerful educational, motivational tools,” he noted. With singers performing up to 40 times annually for 25,000 audience members, the program reports that 85% demonstrated soft skills growth, while 97% showed improved self-esteem and confidence through this structured musical education approach.
SALT Ministries: Founder Syntoria Spencer’s organization empowers girls in underserved communities through their LEADS program (Leadership, Empowerment, Advocacy, Discipline, and Strength). “You cannot be shadow. You have to be very transparent,” Spencer explains about building trust with participants. Starting with just four girls in 2018, SALT has grown to 77 participants across four school locations. Their nine-month program teaches financial literacy and personal development, with Spencer emphasizing to girls that “you are successful, that you are ambitious, reach for the stars. You have no boundaries.”
YMCA Y Reads: Andrea Rosenbaum shared the story of Arian, a third-grader who “had faked it for a long time” but couldn’t read. Through focused literacy intervention, “he actually passed his reading assessment and was promoted to fourth grade.” The program serves 476 students across seven elementary schools, targeting the critical gap where locally only 53% of third-graders read at grade level. With 84% of students showing growth in standardized tests and 92% promoted to the next grade, Y Reads demonstrates that intensive early literacy intervention can change educational trajectories.
After the presentations, ECT Executive Director Lindsey Cannon concluded, “This is actually a living example of civic will turned into public action on behalf of our children.”
PNJ Executive Editor Lisa Nellessen Savage announced that her publication would launch a series of profiles on the providers funded by the Escambia Children’s Trust.
So they are claiming to have served 5,000 kids since their inception?
I guess that means the other 11k poor kids they haven’t managed to locate yet all live on the West Side. We can provide them a map of how to get here, if they’d like.
Even better…
They get about 10M in tax money every year, right?
So if they (really) have touched 5,000 kids in 5 years here’s the math:
5 years x 10,000,000M = 50M / 5,000 kids = 10,000 bucks per kid.
Yeah, right. They’ve helped 5000 children with 10,000 of resources per child. Well alrighty then!
AUDIT. THEM.