Operation Shoestring turned 50 this year, and to celebrate, the nonprofit organization has a major event later this month. Executive Director Robert Langford has led the organization for 22 years. Langford is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and San Francisco State University. He and his wife Betsy Bradley have two children, a son and a daughter. He recently spoke with Sun Senior Staff Writer Anthony Warren about the organization, its work and the upcoming “Conversation about Community” event slated for November 16.
Has Operation Shoestring’s mission changed in the last 50 years?
“Probably our mission statement has changed, but our focus on creating opportunities for children and keeping them safe has remained constant. I want to be very clear on this: what is good for kids has been at the center of all that we’ve done. And we’ve done that in a number of ways, from running day cares and early childhood programs to doing home repair work. We’ve always done afterschool and summer programs. That’s a core part of what we do.”
In the 22 years since you started as executive director, have you noticed the needs of kids changing?
“I really haven’t. The environment evolves, but there have been no radical changes. Kids and families need a few basic things – safe neighborhoods, good affordable housing, good healthcare, good education, meaningful jobs and vocations to build wealth for themselves and their families, and a meaningful spiritual life. Those have been the constants in the nearly quarter century I’ve been doing the work.”
How many children do you serve?
This year, we’ll probably serve about 250 in elementary school, and this summer, we hope to serve another 70 middle schoolers. We are also working with a group of 40 high-schoolers and are working with the families and parents of the kids we serve. In addition to direct services, such as our afterschool program and high school youth leadership program called Ambassadors, we work with parents through our Parent Engagement Network. Operation Shoestring is also the lead organization working to develop the Mississippi Statewide Afterschool Network.”
Tell me about that network.
“The network is a partnership with the governor’s office, the Department of Human Services, the Mississippi Department of Education, the Phil Hardin Foundation, the C.S. Mott Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation and other entities focused on helping organizations run afterschool programs the way we run them. It has a very simple and clear vision of helping Mississippi develop into a state where all children have access to high-quality programming that supports positive academic and social outcomes for children, parents, schools and communities.”
When will the network be fully implemented?
“It’s a project that’s still being birthed and we’re in the third year of developing it. Our hope is that this will be something that will continue to grow over the next several years. We’ve gotten nothing but support and interest from people in the metro area and every corner of the state.”
As far as Operation Shoestring goes, what is your success rate in helping kids? And how do you define success?
“We have lots of good people who are part of a good organization working hard to do good for children, families and the community. One thing we’ve worked hard on is quantifying what success means. What we’ve been able to do is show over the last several years that kids in our summer school and afterschool programs do better on district and state standardized tests than their peers at the same schools who are not in the programs. One indicator we’ve seen is that kids in our programs outpace kids not in our program on the third-grade literacy test, which children must pass to be promoted to fourth grade. We have a nearly 100 percent passage rate over the last three years we’ve been tracking the data, and we’re excited about that.”
Do you track kids after graduation?
“Our long-term tracking is spotty. Over the past five or six years, we’ve gotten much better with keeping up with kids in the long-term. We have some data on our high school program that we ran for five years when we had that five-year grant. One-hundred percent of those kids graduated. What we’re doing now is building a data tracking and evaluation and monitoring process to allow us to better keep up with kids in the long-term. Being the fact that we’ve been around for 50 years, and with plans to be here (many) more, it will be appropriate to have a (tracking) system moving forward.”
What schools do you serve?
“This year, we’re serving kids at Galloway Elementary School, which almost doubled in size because (Brown Elementary) closed … We serve about 40 percent of the students there. This summer, we’ll be working with kids from Brinkley Middle School and year-round we work with high-schoolers from all seven JPS high schools, with the high school leadership development program.”
What is the Ambassador program?
“It’s a high school leadership and development program and is really focused on helping kids understand the issues that shape their lives, that they do have a voice and rights, and that they are not just entitled to their opinions but have a responsibility to voice their opinions and speak up for their peers. They’ve done some really interesting things over the past year. We asked the Ambassadors about the JPS bond issue and they (not the adults) saw the value of trying to advocate on behalf of the bond issue, urging people to vote in favor of it. These young people went out, went on the radio, had press conferences and talked about the importance of trying to create the right kind of environment for kids.”
Does Shoestring have plans to expand to other schools?
“We’ve been asked to expand our services by some principals and families. The greatest compliment is when families tell us they want us to do what we’re doing (at their schools). It would be a matter of resources and growing in managerial capacity to handle additional schools, but we’re not in a place with money to expand … Right now, we’re trying to transfer our knowledge of how to run an afterschool program to other communities through the statewide network.”
What students are eligible for Shoestring’s services?
“To be eligible for the afterschool program, students have to go to Galloway Elementary. During summer, the middle school program will be at Brinkley. Sometimes during the summer, we open it up to kids from other schools within the Lanier High School feeder pattern. Essentially, you need to be known to the core community we serve to be part of the program.”
Switching gears, let’s talk about the 50th anniversary celebration, the “Conversation about Community.” Tell me about that.
“We’ve had for a decade now something called our Conversation about Community, and that’s really designed to create a safe space for tough talk about important issues. There are a lot of people in Jackson who care about the big issues, but there are not many forums to talk about those things in a constructive way. We saw that nobody else was doing it, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to create the forum. We have built that and it seems to resonate with people.
“The other part of the forums are a morning of workshops, all that relate to the work we do. One work shop will focus on the power of partnerships, one will be on effective communication, and another will be on connecting classrooms – what happens during the day to the afterschool and summer programs. The other workshop is about volunteers and developing community partners to be engaged in work. We’ll have a luncheon from 12 to 1:30 p.m., where Dr. Christopher Emdin, a professor of math, technology and engineering at Columbia University, will be speaking. He has dedicated his life to serving communities like the one we have here. There will be a Q and A after that. That evening, we are having a party and a celebration concert at the Mississippi Museum of Art, from 7 to 10 p.m.”
Finally, let’s talk about the capital campaign. How is that going?
“As part our 50th anniversary celebration, we’re wrapping up a capital campaign to completely renovate our building and create a wonderful green space and playground outside of the building to better serve our programs. To date, we’ve raised $2 million. We hope that sharing the good news about the work we’re able to do, we’ll be able to reach our goal real soon. We’ve started construction and hope to be finished next summer. It’s going to be really exciting.”
