Baltimore can be a caution. You laugh, you cry and you try to hang on.
In a short span of time recently, three promising young men were murdered in the city. The immediate and long-run toll is devastating. Talent, potential, joy – all gone in an instant.
If you are a parent, you may think about moving away. Admit it. Isn’t there a less lethal place to raise your son or daughter? Maybe, maybe not. If there were such a place, the answer would be easier.
And then, suddenly, we hear of Leland Shelton. His young adult story, so far, extends from City College to Harvard Law School and, he says, back to Baltimore. He wants to give back.
Baltimore needs him.
His story involves something the city is doing right. So right. So exciting.
Shelton graduated from City College’s International Baccalaureate program in 2009. It’s a challenging, two-year program for talented students headed for universities. His is not the only such success in this program. And yet, says one parent, Adina Amith, someone decides the baccalaureate program can be trimmed.
We are not unaware of the city’s budget problems. Something crucial, it seems, heads for the cutting block every year. Somehow, though, a program that re-stocks the talent pool has be retained – strengthened.
Adina Amith, a lawyer, writes in the Baltimore Sun, “anybody who cares about Baltimore should be talking about raising money for the baccalaureate program.” And, she adds, for the Polytechnic Institute’s Ingenuity Program.
These programs nurture young men and women, young men and women with the inclination to live – and lead - in Baltimore.