Marty Rueckert
Stansbury Scholarship

How Can We Build Our Community for a Better Tomorrow?

As a community there is one key factor that will undoubtedly affect the community for better or for worse, the youth. The youth will be tomorrow’s parents, spouses and community leaders. As the youth are the keystone to to our future, parents, community leaders and a quality education system will help prepare the young people for a better tomorrow.

Parents must be involved in their children’s lives. Many youth push their parents away at times, but most of us still look up to them and care about their involvement in our lives. We need to work as a community to focus on the youth. It seems parents tend to put more focus on having two incomes or divorce, rather than being involved in their child’s life.

Every child matters at a young age; they have a purpose. As a community we should guide, rather than force our young ones. If James Jordon would have had his son follow him into business we wouldn’t have one of the greatest basketball players in the world, Michael Jordon. If Hermann Einstein would have pushed his child to become a salesman we wouldn’t have one of the greatest scientists in the world, Albert Einstein.

Every child has personal talent or unique gift. We shouldn't place tags on our children but instead help them search for their talents. We should teach them to have the work ethic to pursue their talents and gifts successfully and guide them to find success and happiness in their lives.

We must provide opportunities for community youth involvement. This means community involvement in sporting teams and various other youth based programs. Through these opportunities the youth learn how to work well with others, concepts such as team and leadership, and how to set and accomplish goals.

A great selfless person who has provided youth with these types of opportunity is Edward Hughes. He has sacrificed his time to teach me and hundreds of youth how to ballroom dance. Every person interested in learning and developing dancing skill could participate. I have helped teach this class during the last year and it has been incredible to see how the teenager’s confidence within themselves has grown. Many boys wouldn’t even talk to a cute girl, but now they have the confidence to spark conversation and stun them with their acquired dancing talent.

Stansbury High School will give our community the chance to become involved in and influence our youth’s education. In 1976 the United States of America had the top education system in the world. By 2003 we had fallen down to 18^th. We as a community must influence our children to excel in basic education. We must become interested in what our children are learning and support their education.

As we guide our youth we must also stress the importance of moral and virtue education. C.S. Lewis once stated “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” Education is a powerful asset. If harnessed it can bring about greatness, but if left to flounder can bring about loss, heartache, and become a weight bearing the community down.

As we acquire a new high school we have an opportunity as a community to create and begin organizations devoted to service. We could have a Stansbury Youth Community Council to organize and carry out service projects and boost the lives of community residents. An investment in a youth community council would teach youth the importance of service and how to make a difference in the world. As a community we could and should promote service.

You do not have to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, or even and adult to make a difference. You can shovel the widow's walk down the street, or rake an old man's yard. You can volunteer to be a sports coach or help elementary children to read. You can become involved in the various associations in Stansbury Park. You may even be as self driven as Mr. Hughes and create a program to involve and bring up the youth. No matter where we are in life we can strive as a community to bring up the youth for a better tomorrow. Even if your contribution might not seem as significant as the big things, you never know what life you can change by simple acts of kindness, including your own.