Today’s media and society struggle to reach the general population, especially our kids, and perhaps the answer is really right in front of them. Little things and all people are important, but young people need to realize that we think so.
We have a picture board in our kitchen that is filled with pictures and stories of our grandchildren that we clipped from the Cape Gazette over the years. Our grandchildren have now moved on from Cape Henlopen High School, but when they come to our house they always go to that board and just look at it and smile. We do also.
Of our nine grandchildren, 98% of the board comprises five who attended Cape Henlopen schools. In asking ourselves why this discrepancy exists, the answer lies not with the four who were underrepresented on the board, but with geographical area in which we are lucky enough to live. Based on the geographical areas where the other four live, they were not lucky enough to have a local paper like the Cape Gazette, which devotes significant sections of its editions to activities, not only sports, of our young people. The value of this effort by the Gazette lies not just in giving these two grandparents much pride and joy and opportunities to discuss our grandchildren, but in the understanding by the kids that they are important – win or lose. This is, again, priceless as our society grapples with ways to show kids that they are indeed important.
I give the Gazette much credit for understanding the importance of young kids and their activities and their images of themselves. I wish to give Fredman, Dan Cook, Ellen Driscoll and the rest of the editorial staff a special thanks. Our society just seems to not really understand this not-so-complex reality that kids are important, but they need to understand that fact also. Kids better understand this fact when they see themselves in pictures and words.
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