The Danville Public School system held their quarterly “community input forum” on Monday night and talked about “Safety In Our Community”. Let’s go over a few random thoughts about what happened.
- I was highly impressed at the turnout which was much higher than anybody expected.
- It would have been nice to have all of the School Board members present and introduced at the beginning of the meeting.
- I had no idea that the Danville Public School system holds quarterly “community input forums”, but that’s what School Board Chairman George Wilson said. He also said that people were asked to call in plans of attendance, but I never heard anything about that.
- I was also pleasantly surprised to see a majority of Danville City Council members present. Larry Campbell continues to amaze me with the way that he gets involved in community relations.
- More people need to know Derrick Mercer. He’s the pastor at the Rhema Cultural Christian Center on Worsham St. and is the leader of the Danville Ministerial Alliance. Mercer is truly interested in the overall well-being of the community. He isn’t single-issue driven and listens to what everybody has to say. If more people acted in the manners of Mercer, things would be very different in a very short time-frame.
- Don Notdvedt (the head of Danville’s Boys and Girls Club) facilitated the forum very well. He was well prepared and handled the room with skill. When somebody tried to advance a personal agenda with a remark, he politely ran right over top of it and moved along.
- It seems that the only people that know about Danville’s Boys and Girls Club are people who support them financially or people who use their services. They need to get the word out more.
- Lots of ideas and problems went up on the board quickly, and that’s going to lead into my Final Thought.
Final Thought: It’s great that the community got together and identified the problems that lead to violence, but it’s all going to be a wasted effort unless some solutions come out of this meeting. I’m giving Campbell & Notdvedt the benefit of the doubt and believe that the next step (the “steering committee”) will be formed within a month and results come out soon thereafter. We’ll keep our ears open on how this progresses.
I am a teacher at Westwood Middle School and I’m glad to see people getting together to discuss these issues. I live in Halifax County, where issues like these are addressed by people immediately putting their heads in the sand. By addressing these issues head-on, people can begin to not only talk about what and why things are happening; but also look for solutions. I applaud these individuals who took time to speak out for our youth and our future.
People do need to get to know Derrick Mercer. He is a vital tool for this community and he can bring good things to this community.
Don Nodtvedt has been a good person for this community since he came here with Nestle. Since retiring from Nestle he could have gone back home he didn’t he stayed right here and he is still trying to make a difference in Danville. Working with the Boys and Girls club is what he is trying to do and even other community events as well.
Not just local leaders need to take part in these things but the most important people that need to be here are the PARENTS. They need to start taking an active roll in their childrens lives as well. Not just letting them roam the streets with who ever they want. The police and community is not baby sitters.