Kids Steal the Show at Sixtieth All-America City AwardsMeeting in Tampa in mid-June 2009, the panel ofjudges for the sixtieth All America Cities awards—America’s premier civic recognition program—werein for a big surprise. Of twenty-nine cities makingpresentations, a group of two dozen teens and near-teens from Richmond, Indiana, clearly stole the show.

The young people, a rainbow of races and sizes, notonly made Richmond’s ten-minute case a winner butarrested attention with their powerfully matureresponses to questions.

The build-up had been Richmond’s effort to envi-sion its future and prove its worth to be an All-America City. Adult civic leaders were activistenough; reacting to a 2007 Johns HopkinsUniversity report calling Richmond “a dropout fac-tory,” they inaugurated a Third Grade ReadingAcademy for early intervention. Two-thirds of thirdgraders reading below grade level signed up, withscores shortly rising by 50 percent.

As the process rolled out, the twelve-to-fifteen-year-old crowd—some one hundred of them—seemed tobe the chief civic agitators, and proud of it. “We’rethe backbone and also the brains of this effort,” fif-teen-year-old Sophie Ottoni-Wilhelm told the jury.Richmond Mayor Sally Hutton was on hand to helpmake the city’s case, but she committed the rarepolitical act of staying back in the shadows. DerekOkubo, senior vice president of the National CivicLeague, said the kids were in charge even inrehearsals for their presentation.

While supporting the Third Grade Academy, forexample, the young people went upstream with theirown solutions, tapping what they believed was pent-up motivation to be more involved in both schooland community. They persuaded hundreds of theirfriends and acquaintances to participate in perform-ing arts events.

“What really got my attention,” said jury memberChristine Benero, head of the Mile High United Wayin Denver, “was the energy that went into KidFest.”

This month-long event celebrated the efforts thatRichmond young people were making in their com-munity. Adults from the mayor’s office, the WayneCounty Historical Museum, Earlham College, andthe Richmond State Hospital lent a hand, but allseemed to respect the teenagers’ ability to takecharge.

KidFest started with a ninety-unit moonlight paradethat attracted more than two thousand people—more than 5 percent of Richmond’s total popula-tion. Results of the entrepreneurial talent invested inthe project included the start-up of a new local mag-net school oriented to entrepreneurship.

The All-America City awards program invariablyproduces cheerful but fervent competition amongfinalist city delegations seeking one of the ten prizedannual awards. The lobbies and corridors of theTampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina sawswarms of delegates, adults and youths mixed, eachgroup easily identified by brightly colored T-shirtsthat shouted their city’s claim as a truly great place.

Anyone wandering into the hotel ballroom onawards night would have felt the suspense growingover who would be the winners. After three days oflistening to each other’s stories, all twenty-nine final-ists were convinced they were winners. Theannouncement of each winner drew yelps of praiseand thunderous applause. Then the miracle hap-pened at the end of the event. Even those not leav-ing with one of the ten awards consistently said theygot so much out of the experience that they also feltlike winners.

The awards ceremony itself was something of a crossbetween a high school pep rally and a political con-vention. Delegations sat together. Signs and bannerswaved in the air. Whoops and yells punctuated everyannouncement. When called out, winning teamsmarched in the aisles and up onto the stage. Winningdelegations high-fived and hugged each other. Theywere public officials and grassroots activists, peopleof all colors, prosperous people, poor people, united

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Nat ional Civ ic Review • DOI : 10.1002/ncr.20005 • Spr ing 2010

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by what they’d done in common. It was America asit might be: A people united by common purpose anddeeply felt emotion. We’ve all seen a facsimile of thisformula at a major sports event when the home teammakes a dramatic comeback.

But sports do not spell the future of the country.Kids do. Just when you think the country mightcome apart, the All America Cities competitiondelivers a yearly, youthful jolt of civic hope. Atwelve-year-old African American boy from thatRichmond delegation, Jeffrey Caldwell, summed itup when he said, “We’re not just the future, we’rethe present too.”

Also among the 2009 All-America City winners: bigplaces such as Phoenix, which took on its twinbogeymen of an underdeveloped downtown andloss of open spaces to sprawl; Wichita, Kansas,which staged a massive public engagement processinvolving thousands, with more than five hundredorganizations then taking responsibility for anaction agenda; and much smaller Inglewood,California, squeezed in by the massive LAX airport,which successfully persuaded the airport (using liti-gation as the last cudgel) to spend a quarter-billiondollars insulating homes from LAX’s noise. Also inthe winners’ circle: Fort Wayne, Indiana; Albany,New York; Statesville, North Carolina; Somerville,Massachusetts; Kinston, North Carolina; andCaroline County, Virginia.

Curtis Johnson is president of the Citistates Group. Heserved on the 2009 AAC jury and is a past member of theNational Civic League board of directors.

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Spr ing 2010

Even those not leaving with one of the ten awardsconsistently said they got so much out of the expe-rience that they also felt like winners.