The Urban Development Center fought to keep its Escambia Children’s Trust grant – $1.2 million over three years – at the ECT program committee’s workshop this morning. The grant was intended to launch YouthFirst Century, a workforce development program for youth 11-18.
Since signing th ECT contract on March 3, UDC has spent $189K and only attracted 30 middle and high school youth to its after-school program. The UDC leadership – Dr. Jessica Griffen and John Rigsby – had asked to lower the age limit to five.
Century Mayor Luis Gomez defended the program, calling it the only after-school program for children in his town.
“Now it seems that some protocol has not been followed, or whatever the case may be,” the mayor said. “And I just want to advocate for the Town of Century because I saw a lot of articles written here at length that I don’t really think they understand the demographics in Century. It doesn’t represent what the program actually brings to the Town of Century.”
Gomez continued, “See if you were in Pensacola and you took away a program such as this, it is not a big deal because the community has a choice to go to other places to seek these services for the children of the community…If you take this program away from Century, you’re not taking away one of the programs in the city. You’re taking away the only program in the Century.”
The mayor said canceling the program would be “devastating.”
UDC and Gomez wanted to shift YouthFirst from providing job training – which is the focus of the many companies that Rigsby and Griffen own – to being after-school childcare for Century.
The program committee didn’t seem to favor the shift.
Dr. Rex Northrup, an ECT board member, pointed out that the board has a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that the programs funded meet the goals and outlines for which they’ve contracted.
“if that is taking place, then things are good,” said Dr. Northrup. “And if it is not, we have an obligation and responsibility to the taxpayers of Escambia County to say that we either have to make some significant revisions or we need to say that I’m sorry this is not going to work.”
He added, “We are up here sitting in a bit of a hot seat, very privileged to do so, but nonetheless, looking after taxpayers dollars and with the intent of getting as much positive impact on the lives of children as we can. And I hope and think that that’s what we are all here to do.”
UDC blamed his failure to recruit students on
1) “The struggles that families were having with the schools being stripped out of Century,
2) Racism – “Our program had been identified in many cases as a black program for black children.” Note: UDC cited the poverty in Century’s Black community to support its grant request.
3) Youth sports
Rigsby explained why they have shifted the program to focus only on Century’s children.
“We initially had planned to go to the schools, pick up children and bring them directly to the program,” he said. “We found that to be cost-prohibitive from the start…This is one of the reasons why we focused primarily on the children who were directly in Century.”
According to the 2020 Census, Century only has 332 children ages 5-17:
Ages 5-11: 166
Ages 12-14: 59
Ages 15-17: 107
For UDC to attract 250 kids annually – it would need to capture nearly 75% of all the town’s children. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 156 children live in poverty – which is the focus of the Out-of-School Time grants.
When Dr. Griffen spoke, she talked about sending her trainers to Ernest Ward Middle School and recruiting students from Bratt Elementary’s after-school program. She acted as if their entire student bodies were candidates for YouthFirst, despite Rigsby stating a few minutes earlier that transportation outside of Century was cost prohibitive.
How many children are participating in YouthFirst? Rigsby said 30 a day – first, he said it was different children every day, then he changed to say it was mostly the same kids regularly.
ECT Compliance Director Kim Krupa said, “The reporting deadline was November 15th and we had that there were 30 total served (11-18) through November 15th and that 11 of those attended in the past 30 days.”
So 30 kids – 11 regularly. Cost per child: $6,300
