Kicking it Off

What is it about a brand new year that makes people resolve to change their lives? Lose weight, stop smoking, go back to school. Do we really need a starting point to motivate us toward major (or even less major) achievements? Consensus may never be reached on this issue, but it’s a rather adorable if not cathartic quirk of human nature that is worth exploring.

Our goal at Starfish Learning Center, since 1997, has been to educate, empower, and encourage at-risk youth in a troubled Chicago community. “Troubled” is an ambiguous label, but the gangs, drug trafficking, prostitution, and occasional violence in our neighborhood means the “troubled” shoe fits. Regardless of one’s ethnic background, there is some level of culture shock for anyone unfamiliar with “urban” or “inner-city” life. Here, most everyone is considered economically challenged and, unfortunately, many are also addicted and/or lacking the educational background or opportunities to improve their circumstances.

But every New Year, when we flip our collective calendars to January, hope is birthed in souls worldwide, regardless of economic status. And although Starfish is no living, breathing entity, hope dwells and swells in us who live and breathe behind the center’s facade. Though our commitment to youth remains steadfast and our goals have not been rewritten, we too feel the newness at the old year’s demise and look forward with excitement to what lies ahead for our students as well as Starfish. Yet, for many, it goes much deeper. The new year means a resetting of possibility, a rebirth of hope that lingered just out of reach only hours before, as if the “curse” of 2009, with so many deaths, recessionary woes, and tragic events, disintegrated at the stroke of midnight, and survivors rose from its ashes a phoenix with the promise of new life.

You can almost hear the collective sigh. Whew! We made it thru 2009. The weight is lifted, the sun returns, we breathe freely of hope and all that is to come. Then, one by one, we pick ourselves up and journey forward.

A calendar year is a bite-sized unit in which people measure and reflect upon their lives, so we understand the tendency to grow weary as a year ends. We also believe it is important to thank God even during (or especially during) hardship. So, yes, as we say adios to 2009, we praise God for His goodness to see us through. God bless us all in 2010. [www.starfishchicago.com]