You are a student in a low-income community. Your family is not always stable but it has given you a baseline of support that allows you to have some success in school. A new program comes to the community that takes the most at-risk students and offers them after school care. Although your family is struggling, the fact you are doing well in school means you do not get into this new program. You continue to go home to a locked house after school even as you see your lower performing peers receiving additional support. In time, you figure out that to get that additional support, it is in your vested interest to do a little more poorly on your academic work and cut up a bit more in class. Your promise as a positive student begins to fade and a community asset loses its shine.

For years this story was repeated as a result of the undoubtedly good intentions of nonprofits doing “need-based” child care in disinvested communities. In trying to help those who were struggling most we also discouraged those who were performing at their best. High functioning communities have an ability to identify their present and future leaders and invest in those leaders for a better tomorrow (think of the local leadership programs sponsored by your municipality or chamber of commerce). At Metanoia, we seek to create a generation of community leadership that is capable of bringing change from within the community rather than depending on outsiders to provide services. We want all students in our community to have quality after school and summer care. However, we invest our limited resources in further developing our young leaders because we believe this is the most efficient and effective way to see our community heal itself.