"And I told her, 'Well, honey, something like this is an awfully big job. Maybe, if we're lucky, three or four years.'
"And that girl looked up at me and said, 'Mr. Strickland, I don't have three or four years."
The girl was right, she doesn't have three or four years. Neither does this country. Kids dropping out of high school at a 50% rate or worse because their schools look and act like prisons, not places where dreams take root. Poverty growing, neighborhoods dying -- hope dying. Jobs are out there -- you all know what I'm talking about -- but you can't fill them and people who want to work can't find them because they can't read, can't do basic math, and what's worse they can't imagine themselves reading or doing the math, much less working those good jobs to support their families. Something wrong with this picture, my friends. Something way wrong. I found Frank Ross. Millions of kids looking for their own Frank Ross. Millions of adults wanting to be Frank Ross. But they can't find each other. They can't find a place to go that treats them fairly and offers them good food to eat and beautiful things to look at and good work to do. That little girl is right, my friends -- we are going down. We don't have three or four years. But we got each other. We got our hearts and our brains and our hands, and if we work together we can do it, we can change the world. We can build this center for that little girl, ladies and gentlemen.
Then Strickland signed off and all the Silicon Valley princes leaped to their feet, clapping and hollering, as if they were up at PacBell Park and Barry Bonds had just hit one into McCovey Cove. Tears glistened in more than one executive's eyes. Jeff Skoll's first thought was, "Oh, no, I've got to go on after this guy," followed by the realization that this man from Pittsburgh was his foundation's premise made flesh. This was the brand, Skoll thought.
"There are two kinds of power in his line of work," says Skoll, whose foundation now helps underwrite both BAYCAT and Manchester Bidwell's national replication plan, which is nearing the end of a five-year proof-of-concept phase. "The power in materially helping an individual or community discover the strength within themselves, and the power to inspire. It's fairly rare to have either one. Bill Strickland has both."
Every afternoon, buses arrive at Manchester Bidwell from each of the city's 13 public high schools, delivering students for after-school classes, and each evening buses take them back to their neighborhoods. MCG contracts with Pittsburgh Public Schools to provide a bulk of the district's art programs.
"Those buses are as crucial to our mission as the mentoring we give the kids once they get here," says Jesse Fife, Manchester Bidwell's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "People coming from more affluent backgrounds don't realize how difficult it is for a child from a struggling family -- or a child with no family support at all -- just to get places. Not having to worry about transportation takes a tremendous load off a kid's mind. Those buses bring girls and boys to MCG ready to learn."
Beginning this fall, MCG/Bidwell will also provide a portion (eventually to become the majority) of Pittsburgh Public Schools' vocational education program. At the same time, MCG is negotiating with the U.S. Department of Education to fashion a comprehensive arts-based curriculum for a school district in suburban Pittsburgh. The Bidwell Training Center, meanwhile, surfs waves of both public and private revenue. The enterprise forms a $3.5 million line item in the Pennsylvania department of labor's annual budget, and also maintains the dynamic partnerships with private employers that, along with its nonprofit, tuition-free status and intense academic program, distinguish Bidwell from other job-training businesses.
A deal that Strickland struck with the Pittsburgh-area supermarket chain Giant Eagle exemplifies the Manchester Bidwell style. An avid gardener, Strickland had long been interested in growing commercial orchids. He discovered that Giant Eagle's orchid supplier was a California nursery owned and operated by a Japanese American family. Strickland sent staffers out to California to learn about the business. After their return to Pittsburgh, Strickland approached Giant Eagle CEO Dave Shapira with a proposition: If MCG/Bidwell could supply locally grown orchids of equal quality and at a lower price than the California product, would Giant Eagle help finance the construction of a state-of-the-art greenhouse, then buy the flowers that came out of it? Shapira agreed, and with the technical assistance of the California growers, Strickland built the $4 million greenhouse. This year, MCG/Bidwell started supplying top-grade orchids to Giant Eagle, grown by students in the Bidwell Training Center's horticultural program.
"If that's not the whole story in a nutshell, tell me what is," Strickland crows. "You've got an African American company learning to grow orchids from a Japanese American company. The African American company sells its orchids to a grocery chain owned by a Jewish American. The orchids are grown by students -- welfare moms and laid-off steelworkers -- on the site of a former steel mill. The greenhouse is built with aluminum from Alcoa and glass from PPG, both Pittsburgh companies. And all of the other materials are local, as far as possible."
