“I want our community to celebrate its children. I want us to be more child focused and family focused,” says One City Early Learning Center CEO Kaleem Caire. “What you do with children and how families are supported and how strong they are … that’s what defines a community going forward.”
Eight children who graduated from Caire’s One City Early Learning Center’s 4K class were treated to a special graduation ceremony and will be moving on to kindergarten in fall, ready to conquer the scholarly world. At Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Madison’s south side June 6, the 1st Annual One City Graduation and Community BBQ was a very memorable and special experience for the eight young graduates involved in the ceremony, but it was also a very big deal for the families, friends, supporters, and community members who witnessed the event.
“Gloria Ladson-Billings had a done a session for us with early educators and parents [at One City] about the importance of transitions between pre-school and elementary school, elementary school to middle school, and middle school to high school and talked about making sure that those transitions go well and that students are prepared,” Caire tells Madison365. “And it really made me think about how we really do need to bring the spirit of honoring and celebrating our children’s work and transition right now … get them used to it early.
(Photo by Marcus Miles)
“We want the community to celebrate their success. It was awesome to see such a full room of donors, community leaders, parents, and family and friends,” he adds. “It was a diverse group of people, too. They were all clapping and cheering these kids on as they walked down the aisle to get their certificates.”
Located in the heart of the south side of Madison, one of the most racially, ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods in Wisconsin, One City is next door to the Boys and Girls Club on Taft St. and down the street from the townhouse at the top of Fisher St. across from Penn Park where Caire grew up. The graduation ceremony was held at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, also right down the street from One City.
“[Mt. Zion] Pastor Marcus Allen has been an awesome partner with us. They’ve allowed us to use that space several times for functions for our school,” Caire says.
(Photo by Marcus Miles)
The imagery of the young students in their yellow graduation gowns was very powerful for both the kids and the community looking on.
“We want people to see that this is them now; this should be them later,” Caire says.”They should be walking across the stage in high school. They should be walking across the stage in college. Why shouldn’t they when they are walking across the stage right now? It’s a message to the community and to parents that if we invest in these children, they will do great things and go great places and make us happy and make us proud.
“We wanted to send that message that graduation and completion of something are important,” he adds. “Just having those kids dawn those robes for the first times in their lives was huge. I will never forget that.”
What did the kids think about it all? “Oh, they were excited. A couple of kids were scared; one of them was clinging to her mom. She wasn’t quite used to it. But they warmed up to it quick.”
Dr. Jasmine Zapata was the keynote speaker for the graduation ceremony.
“The one thing I want you to remember is to never give up on your dreams! You can do anything you set your minds to. But I have a secret. Sometimes along your journey to reach your dreams things will get tough,” Zapata told the kids. “But when that happens, you have TWO choices. Number one, give up or number two, keep going … never give up always keep going!”
After the graduation ceremony, community members gathered outside to enjoy delicious barbecue prepared by Chef Rod and Chef Joel.
Caire says that he was happy to see the parents so excited about their children transitioning on into kindergarten. When he first opened the doors to One City almost two years ago, his goal was to provide affordable, accessible, and high-quality preschool that partnered parents and the community to prepare young children for school success. “That joy and the excitement at graduation day is something that I envisioned,” he says. “It was a memorable day and I’m excited about the future.
“I can’t stress how important our children are and that families are for children. If you take a city like Chicago and look at the breakdown of family structure and see the lack of support for children and all of the challenges … and then children grow up in that traumatic experience and they recreate more trauma,” he adds. “We can’t allow that to happen and that’s why I’m trying to get the community to see that we need to stop talking about fixing this achievement gap all the time and start to invest in our children and investing in strong families.”
For more information about One City Early Learning Centers, call (608)268-8004, e-mail [email protected] or click here.
