Soul is a feeling, feeling deep within
Soul is not the colour of your skin
Soul is the essence, essence from within
It is where everything begins
So declares Van Morrison in “Soul” on his “Keep it Simple” album, released in 2008. That’s the same time the Knight Foundation launched its project to find the “Soul of the Community” in 26 cities, including Bradenton.
Finding the soul of anything doesn’t sound simple. Yet it truly is where everything begins. And if the research of this three-year project holds true, the Bradenton area has a tremendous core for its future.
It was with more than a bit of skepticism that I went to the University of South Florida’s Selby Auditorium last week for the official presentation of the project’s second-year results. Let’s see: recession, home invasions, unemployment, record murder rate. Those have been beating up on our community’s soul for months now. How in the world could those traits coexist with a good soul?
But I had promised David Klement, longtime cohort here at the Herald and USF’s director of the Institute for Public Policy and Leadership, who had promised me I would learn what binds people to this community. And, as we had already read in the Bradenton Herald, this research ranked Bradenton residents as the most attached to their community. So, my good ol’ Missouri upbringing got the best of me. Show me.
Katherine Loflin, lead consultant on the project, did just that. But she didn’t just show us what a wonderful place this has been. She showed us what a promising place this can become for everyone here, not just for the core who already believe in Bradenton.
We’re actually lucky. That high attachment already here, that emotional investment in where we live, promises better economic growth and sustainability. An impressive 43 percent of those surveyed said they are highly attached to the community, well above the norm. And that was up from only 35 percent in 2008.
“Take advantage of being ahead of the curve this year,” Loflin urged the audience, which was a blend of residents, politicians, community leaders and educators. “What we do today will impact what happens tomorrow.”
The biggest challenge that she saw in that data: How welcoming this community is — or isn’t — to different types of people. If ever anything rang true about the Bradenton area, this is gospel. And it’s a challenge this community must embrace to maintain and grow the strong, emotional attachments that make Bradenton so unique.
While 60 percent of the senior population ranked the openness of our community high, only 18 percent of minorities felt that way. And only 7 percent of young, talented college graduates felt that this community was welcome and open for them. That’s actually a 3 percent improvement from 2008. Without diversity, without the energy of young creative minds, our soul will wither.
David used words from his own soul to set the stage for this presentation. He harkened back to the days when the Bradenton Herald was owned by Knight-Ridder, the same John S. Knight whose foundation has invested in this study. “This is a tribute to their legacy that they continue to support the communities where they had newspapers,” he noted.
And he talked about how this newspaper has long been dedicated to this community, and how its editorial pages must be the soul of the community, with the editorials defining its conscience. And, I thought suddenly, the newsroom is truly the heart of the community.
Let’s keep it beating. And let’s have the soul to do it right.
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