My formal "report card" on Overtown will be done soon, but I wanted to report on something that happened there today while I was busy collecting photographs and interviews.The fellow reaching into the cooler in the photo on the right was very reluctant to talk to a white guy with a recording device and a still camera, so I put the camera back in the car and mostly made idle conversation while I ate my $.25 icee. His icees are homemade frozen Kool-aid, frozen in a small plastic cup like the one you see in his left hand.
What tore at my heart was his passion for the kids there at Theodore Gibson Park, next to the Frederick Douglass Elementary School.
The vendor didn't want to give me his name, so I will call him Raymond.
Raymond was deliberately trying to be vague, but he was apparently struggling financially. All he shared with me was, "We all do what we have to t' get by."
And kids will be kids. Even if they didn't have any money they would still come up and ask how much the icees cost. If they had a parent nearby, they would rush back and tell their mom or dad, but most of the kids either were there without a parent, or they knew the parent would have no money. 
As it turns out, Raymond's personal ethic got in the way of his business ethic. It was his habit to pass on any of his tips to the little kids, so when somebody like me comes along and tells him to keep the change from a dollar bill, Raymond would allow three kids to have a free icee. I saw one fellow on a bench give a young boy a dollar who was bold enough to ask for a quarter, and Raymond was observant enough to give the young boy one icee and then three more freebies to three more youngsters within the next few minutes. To me it looked like the fellow who gave up the dollar looked like he needed it even more than Raymond or the child, and if he was related to the child he must have been a grandfather. I got the impression that he was a stranger to the child though.
As it turns out, Raymond's personal ethic got in the way of his business ethic. It was his habit to pass on any of his tips to the little kids, so when somebody like me comes along and tells him to keep the change from a dollar bill, Raymond would allow three kids to have a free icee. I saw one fellow on a bench give a young boy a dollar who was bold enough to ask for a quarter, and Raymond was observant enough to give the young boy one icee and then three more freebies to three more youngsters within the next few minutes. To me it looked like the fellow who gave up the dollar looked like he needed it even more than Raymond or the child, and if he was related to the child he must have been a grandfather. I got the impression that he was a stranger to the child though.
Raymond is not just an entrepreneur. He is also a leader, and a teacher. These children were being taught important lessons by this big-hearted man. After giving away a free icee these kids were told who to thank. The gifts were never allowed to be anonymous. After I gave Raymond a dollar the next three kids who said "thank you" to Raymond for the free icee were told, "Thank this man. He bought it for you."
And they did, with very generous smiles.
After the man on the bench gave up his dollar, Raymond told the kids to go thank the man on the bench. They would holler "Thank you," but the sounds of the overhead freeway nearby drowned out the sound. Regardless, the kids knew that they were the beneficiaries of a generous act.
With a demonstration like this, I see that the community already has the will to create a future for the young people. They just don't have the means.
And people like Raymond are doing what they can to train the future leaders - at a very young age - and in $.25 increments.
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