Cultural Leadership, the long-running anti-bias/social justice program geared toward mostly Jewish and African-American high school students, will expand to include middle school students in its offerings.

“I can tell you that I personally see every day the changes that we’re making with students and their families and the impact that our program has,” said Maggie Harris, program director, “but it is hard to share that impact all the time with the rest of the world when people see that we’re only serving 30 kids each year.”

As a result, the effort, which includes a full year of activities, retreats and trips for participants to learn how to become “social change agents,” will now offer two smaller “summer camp” style events for middle schoolers. The two-week camps will host 18 to 24 youngsters each. 

At present, the high school program serves 24 to 36 students a year.

The middle school camps, set to begin in July, will include at least one three-day “mini-trip” to a regional destination. Harris said this summer’s journey will likely be to Memphis.

The exact curriculum hasn’t been worked out yet, however, the shorter time frame and younger audience will necessitate some changes.

“It is going to have to be different because our high school program is really intense,” Harris said. “It’s a year long and involves a three-week trip that the kids take each June.”

Harris said the program had originally considered an expansion in the other direction, aiming at college students. But ultimately it was decided to look younger to give children an opportunity to get a taste of what the initiative has to offer before high school when their schedules tend to fill up.

“From what we’ve seen in the community, middle school students are talking about social justice, they are interested in social change,” she said. “They are interested in learning about other people and they are definitely exploring and trying to get a better idea of what their identity is and who they are.”

Prices haven’t been set on the summer initiative yet and the details of the funding are still being hammered out as well.

The new camp isn’t the only change to impact the program. Prices are influx for the high school version as well. Currently set at $700, they will likely increase to the $1,000 to $2,000 range with an exact decision being made next month. Cultural Leadership says the new figure will remain well below the actual cost per student, which runs around $8,000. 

The calendar is set to change also and will be reset to begin in August. Cultural Leadership has traditionally launched in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January but Harris said that arrangement has sometimes proven problematic for students whose yearly schedules tend to resettle after each summer.  

Joel Broddon, a Parkway Central High School student who graduated from the program this month, said he gained a strong sense of direction from the Cultural Leadership experience.

“Before I entered the program, I knew I wanted to make a difference but I didn’t know how I was going to make that difference and what kind of difference I wanted to make,” said the United Hebrew congregant. “Cultural Leadership really gave me that sense of ‘This is what I want to do and here are some ideas of how I can go about that.’”

The 16-year-old believes it will translate smoothly to the middle-school level.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Getting kids involved in social justice issues when they are younger is a great way to not only spread the word about social justice and what’s going on but later to recruit social justice activists. It’s a good way to get people involved and find people who want to make a difference so that they can make that difference.”

Broddon’s mother, Lisa, said that she feels the program helped give her son a distinctive voice.

“I think he will take all this information with him throughout his life,” she said. “He already was the type of kid who had friends from a lot of different cultures anyway… but I think this program is great for any kid that has this interest because it teaches tolerance and teaches about people’s differences yet that we are all still the same.”

Darrell Hopson, a senior at Hazelwood Central High School, was one of this year’s African-American participants. He was actually part of a similar program in middle school and said kids are ready for the message.

“They are at that age where things like this are going to slowly start becoming more real to them,” he said. “When you are attempting to create a movement as we are then you want do your best to affect people as early as possible. The earlier you can get to somebody to affect their mindset, the better.”

The Florissant resident said he had long been frustrated with troubling issues among fellow African-Americans such as the use of racial slurs and derogatory comments about homosexuals. 

Cultural Leadership helped him to better understand his own community as well as that of his Jewish friends and allowed him to channel his thoughts productively.

“Now, not only am I in a group with likeminded peers who also have these feelings,” he said, “but I’m also with this organization that can hopefully teach me how to channel all of this energy that I have.”