Here 41 percent of students will leave high school without obtaining a high school diploma. Here only 40 percent of the students pass the English II exam, which is necessary to graduate from high school in Mississippi. Here the average ACT score is 16.3, which will not exactly have colleges filling your mailbox with scholarship offers. The “here” I am referring is Sunflower County, Mississippi.
To paint a more holistic image of the woes that Sunflower County faces, I must utilize the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data. According to the 2012 report, Sunflower County holds an unemployment rate of nearly 15 percent. Teen pregnancies also ravage this small, rural county. To this point, I have painted a rather grim image of Sunflower County, however there is a silver lining in the metaphorical cloud. The Sunflower County Freedom Project is that lining.
According to its website, the Sunflower County Freedom Project was founded by Chris Myers Asch, Shawn Raymond and Gregg Costa in 1998. These individuals were former teachers in the area and had a keen sense of the need in the community. The Sunflower County Freedom Project was just a summer program at a local community college, which eventually grew into a partnership with The University of Mississippi. Since its inception, the program has been thriving.
The Sunflower County Freedom Project develops programming which directly addresses the ills that plague the Sunflower community. For example, the programming includes: educational travel, character development, core academic support, health/fitness training, and arts enrichment.
Though the Sunflower County Freedom Project does not present itself as the silver bullet to solve all of the problems in Sunflower, the impact of the program is quite evident. Most impressively, 100 percent of the fellows who complete the fellowship attend a four year college. However, the Sunflower County Freedom Project is limited in its scope of impact by the amount of financial support it has to run its extensive programming.
We need more Mississippians to invest in programs such as the Sunflower County Freedom Project. The crumbling state of education and life in general cannot be solved without the concerted efforts of individuals outside of the community who care about the well-being of others. The Trent Lott Leadership Institute regularly sponsors interns to work the summer in Sunflower County.
Organizations such as the Black Student Union have partnered with the Sunflower County Freedom Project in efforts to fundraise for the good work that is occurring through the program. I think the University of Mississippi as a whole, as well as the many unique organizations that make up the university, are poised to make a huge impact for the Sunflower County Freedom Project.
Imagine if each fraternity and sorority partnered with Sunflower County Freedom Project. Imagine if each organization partnered with the Sunflower County Freedom Project. Through all of our combined efforts we can make Sunflower County truly shine.
Tim Abram is a senior public policy leadership major from Horn Lake.
