by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The speakers at the Freedoms Foundation’s 11th Annual Youth Leadership Forum included City Council member Lad Daniels and Council President Kevin Hyde, but organizers said the message was handed down from the country’s founding fathers.
About 150 high school students crowded the auditorium at the Mary Singleton Senior Center in Springfield Wednesday to hear a message focused on promoting individual responsibility and civic action.
Daniels told the students that good citizenship starts with self-reliance and community-wide cooperation.
“You know when we had hurricane Katrina, everybody started talking about what the government didn’t do,” said Daniels. “When I was young, we had a terrible hurricane come through Jacksonville, but nobody was talking about the government. We helped ourselves and worked together as a community.”
The Freedoms Foundation is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to teach children America’s founding principles. Primarily, that message focuses on the balance of rights and responsibilities of citizens. The organization was founded in 1949 by President Dwight Eisenhower. Today the main campus in Valley Forge, Va. oversees 30 chapters across the country.
It’s a message that has never been more important for young people to hear, said Joe Meux, president of the local chapter.
“This is prime time for us. It’s an important time for our country, I believe,” said Meux. “Leadership and patriotism, the values of the Founding Fathers were taught to us and now it’s time for our generation to pass it along.”
The Singleton Center made an appropriate setting for the forum, said Meux.
“I think it’s wonderful that we have an inter-generational affair with seniors and youth coming together,” he said. “It’s appropriate that we come together at a senior center.”