Baisden brings mentoring campaign to FAMU

REGINALD ALCEUS
OUTLOOK STAFFWRITER

Not a single seat in Florida A & M University’s Lee Hall Auditorium was left available as students, as well as local parents and children, flocked to view national radio host and author Michael Baisden and George Willborn March 2.

Baisden brought his “One Million Mentors to Save Our Kids” campaign to FAMU’s campus, holding a town meeting to discuss the importance of mentoring children for the preservation and enrichment of the community. According to Victor Duncan, assistant program director for the 96.1 JAMZ radio station, Baisden was inspired to start the campaign after learning about the public slaying of a Chicago student last year. Tallahassee is one of more than 60 locations Baidsen plans to take the program, Duncan said. During the program, a check for $5,000 courtesy of the Michael Baisden Foundation, was donated to Big Bend Mentoring in following the program’s initiative to donate to charities in locations it visits.

Baisden and Willborn were joined by a distinguished group of panelists associated with mentoring programs, including FAMU’S Dr. William E. Hudson Jr., Dr. Brenda Jarmon, Dr. Edward G. Tolliver, Ronald Joe of 100 Black Men; Louis Dilbert, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters and vice president of Alpha Phi Alpha and Kimolyn Ferrell, founder and president of Dare to Dream Young Girls Network.

“I think it was a fabulous program,” said Jarmon, a speaker, educator, scholar and community leader. “I like what Michael Baisden and his program are doing because I think we have to greet one, reach one and teach one (child). I think we can do it individually as well as collectively because I think we owe it to our ancestors. They didn’t forget about us, they helped each other and I think we need to go back to that feeling of consciousness because that’s what helped us get to where we are today.”

The town hall meeting presented an opportunity for the panelists to reach out to potential mentors in the audience. “One Hundred Black Men is here; it is an organization that wants to make a difference,” Joe said. “We’ve established goals for the 2010 year we call ‘Four for the 100.’” It’s mentoring , education, health and wellness and economic development. Through those four programs, we want to make a difference in this community and we would like to have you help us by joining in so we can help more of the young men and women in our community.”

Baisden and Willborn combined their brand of comedy with important lessons projected by the campaign, both educating and entertaining the audience. “Parents, you all need to be more nosy,” Willborn said. “Parents aren’t nosy enough. Parents needs to check their kids’ cell phones, parents need to find out who their kids hang out with, they need to know what pictures they send out and what pictures they’re receiving, they need to go under some drawers and look underneath some mattresses; the kinds of things where they say you’re invading their privacy.”

Among the various issues discussed by Baisden, the topic of absent fathers was passionately addressed as a growing concern within the community. “When a woman has to teach her son how to go to the bathroom, that’s one of those moments,” said Baisden. “To any of the mothers out there, if you’re with your little boys and you say ‘What the heck am I doing here? That is a man’s moment.’ That’s when the woman realizes that she doesn’t have a man in this boy’s life to teach him what a man is supposed to do.”

Leon County Comissioner Bill Proctor, who attended the event, said the night’s program was “stimulating“ and it “encouraged the minds and hearts of people from all walks of life.” Proctor said he was impressed with the number of youths, adults and senior citizens who attended.

Ceola Grant, an academics coordinator at Florida State University and mother of two, said the program was something that was needed in Tallahassee and that the influence of mentors needed to be pushed further given the number of college students available in the community.