This was a letter written to the Journal Times some time ago, after a article was written about gangs in Racine.
Letter to the Editor,
I belong to a gang. The gang I belong to has its colors, it has its handshakes, its terms, it boundaries, it clothing association and its logo around town. Each of our members has a ranking system, and the rank depends on what they do. Some of our members belong because of the family atmosphere, the recognition, and the respect from the other members. We teach our gang members to use knives and guns. We teach our members to stand up for our cause. Our members have done their fair share of painting things around the community. Their goal this spring was to get their gang sign on over 30,000 buildings in the Racine area. My gang has nearly 100 members, but we too are just a small part of the overall network of gangs in this community as well as other major cities in the Nation. There is one difference in our gang as opposed to the gangs that were written about in the newspaper article paper. Our gang is based on good values for a community. We teach our gang members to be a POSITIVE part of our society. We provide good role models for our members. We encourage the parents to be involved. The gang I belong to is the Boy Scouts of America.
The way our gang spread our gang sign around town was in the distribution of Scouting for Food Bags to help feed the needy. The painting that they did was to improve the community by sprucing up places like local churches, and playgrounds and help with many projects to make the community a better place. The knives and guns are used with guidelines as part of the programs. They are taught to use them with respect for the purpose they were intended for, not to kill our fellow man. The interesting part is there are less than 12 people paid staff to provide this service to over 3000 youth our community. There are over 800 adult volunteer leaders involved in our gang. Volunteers give their time and talent to make our community a better place. People that have families, maintain full-time jobs, run their kids to sporting events, music lessons and the many other things that keep our youth families busy. Why do they do it, because the hour or two they spend helping out creates a program that helps their children grow and mature to be adults and good citizens. It is not a few people making everything work for them, it is a group of people working together a little at a time to make something big like the Scouting programs in Racine. Not only the Boy Scouts but the Girl Scouts and the many church and civic groups as well work under the same philosophy. We as a community have to all help out and create the community we want. We cannot blame the Mayor's office, the Police Department, or the schools for providing this for our youth. It is not their job! It is the PEOPLE that make up the community, not the governing bodies of the community. If WE don’t help out and be part of our children’s lives as a community, we sure can't expect our community leaders to do it for us. They can only provide the resources to facilitate the opportunity to help our youth.
We as a community need to create a better balance of recognition for the good that our youth do and not glamorize the bad. Youth want recognition, it is interesting the amount of press that is used to cover the negatives of the youth but how about the 500 scouts that will be meeting in a couple of weeks to explore many career possibilities at a Merit Badge camporee in Burlington? How about the 100 or so volunteers that will help put this on for the youth? How about this month's Rotary meeting where they will recognize about 25-30 Boy and Girl Scouts for reaching their Eagle and Gold Awards respectively? Awards that they have worked on for over 5 years, with requirements that would include knowledge of many life skills as well as a dedication to service to the Racine community. Some of these 25 projects alone, contribute as much as 300 hours of service to our community. The interesting thing is that will not even hit the news. Mild acts of violence will! Why, cause as a community that is what we want to see, and isn’t that a shame? I think it was well said by William Perez of Johnson Wax a few months ago at the RAMAC meeting. We as a community have to get involved. WE need to make this a better place to live. WE need to make this community a beacon of success, and the only way to do that is to be role models for our youth and give them the structure and guidance to succeed. If we don’t do it positively, there are surely plenty of people to do it negatively. Support the good, like Scout programs, church youth groups, and the many other community youth programs. The community problems are OURS, let's quit pointing fingers at everyone else and roll up our sleeves and create a solution, one small step at a time. How can we expect our youth to be responsible, if we are not?
Timothy Falendysz
Scoutmaster
Boy Scout Troop 161
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