Escambia County Commissioner Lumon May works with kids living in some of the county’s poorest neighbors and is frustrated that the Escambia Children’s Trust staff continues to push for ancillary programs that don’t directly help those children.
“I don’t think we need to continue to fund phone services and strategic plans when the kids are hurting,” May said on WCOA this morning. “None of the programs (pushed by ECT staff) are going into the front line of Attucks Court or Oakwood Terrace. Let’s put the money on the ground to children who are hungry, who need to be fed, not feeding organizations because people come down on a Tuesday night and yell and scream…We just need to put the money toward the solution.”
Rather than funding general programs like the $1.6 million Help Me Grow hotline or $51,580 for a directory, the commissioner wants to see pilot programs that be tested and spread across the county.
“We have to streamline it. We have to attack it neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, and looking at where the greatest need is to go into those neighborhoods. This is a marathon, and it’s not a sprint.”
