WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- Bill Strickland's life changed when his teacher encouraged him in an arts program.
It made such an impact on his life, that he wanted to share the experience.
"So I ended up taking my arts and ceramics experience and applying it to my neighborhood in the 60s during the riots in Pittsburgh to try and create some type of alternative to that way of living for the kids in the neighborhood, he said. "Their parents said whatever you are doing with my kids they are starting to go to school more regularly and they started showing up more regularly, their grades started to improve."
Decades later, his after-school program is still thriving with more than 500 students.
"It was my mother who really in spite of the harsh conditions that we grew up in really insisted in quality and pride and self respect and she never accepted the predicament of being poor as an excuse for not being able to learn," he said.
Strickland wrote about it in his book "Make the Impossible Possible". Now he wants to expand his program to other cities, including some in South Florida.
"I am actually one of the few people in life who can actually say that because I am alive other human beings have a chance to have a life. That's a very unusual profession where everybody that goes through that center in one form or another is down to their last prayer and by training people to go to work they can break out of the poverty cycle and stay out of it," he said.
"Make the Impossible Possible" by Bill Strickland
Manchester Bidwell Corporation
