About the Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps,
(WEBCC) is a not-for-profit community based youth organization established
January of 2011, its mission is to enhance the quality of life and expand the
opportunities of young men and women to achieve life-long success through
formal and informal education, mentoring programs for our youth in the Greater New York area. It is the goal of the program to form
partnerships with local school districts and the juvenile court system and
other like mind organizations to tackle the crisis that our youth of today have
been facing. WEBCC has fostered a
commitment to young people and will promote pro-social friendships, strong
interpersonal skills, and reassert a sense of hope for their future.
Only through personal relationships can a sense of individual responsibility be
reestablished, that will give our youth the commitment to follow through on a path
to adulthood with a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Through repeated failures in the
classroom and the development of destructive habits, at-risk young people have
lost faith in the possibilities that await them if they are successful in
putting their lives together. To accomplish this goal, young people must be in
a caring, inclusive learning environment that promotes their best effort and
reinforces personal respect.
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps is
a program that is in direct response to the growing number of young people that
will either fall through the cracks at school or are already entangled with the
juvenile court system. The goal of the program is to identify youths who are
going to have a turbulent transition to adulthood and offer a positive
support system to avoid the pitfalls that can derail their lives. The focus is
slightly different at each level but the goal remains the same; empower the
young person to make positive changes in his/her life.
We are dedicated to various
issues aimed at promoting the rights and well being of our youth. Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps realized the
potential of the inner-city youth to build healthier and safer
communities. Our programs are based on
the belief that our youth represent a valuable, untapped resource and can
significantly contribute to the rejuvenation of neighborhoods and the community
as a hold.
Our project is for all youth, but
our focus will be on the at risk youth, when we observe our youth of today,
what do we think about, what do we see? Youth being disrespectful, not going to
school, pants sagging almost to their knees:
Or do we see our youth as individuals who are looking to become
productive members of society. The
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps is committed to our youth; we aim to improve the
changes of our youth/cadets to succeed in life, and become responsible,
resilient, productive resourceful citizens prepared for success.
For My People Empowerment Inc.
was the sponsoring agency for the Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps since their
start, we were covered under For My People Empowerment, Inc. 501(c)(3)
exemption and also added the Cadet Corps under their insurance policy. As of August 2013 the Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
has received their Federal Exemption and State Exemption. We have continued our working relationship
with For My People Empowerment who provides Emergency Preparedness training to
all the youth within the Corps.
Mission & Objectives
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps is
committed to improving the chances of our youth to succeed in life, become
nurture responsible, resilient and producing resourceful cadets that will
become successful citizens. By providing
core values, exemplifying loyalty and character development. Over time, WEBCC will create a learning
environment that will be an invaluable resource to young
people, aspiring mentors and the community at large.
Cadets and their leaders are
committed to attaining the program’s core values:
Loyalty – the
expression of our dedication to the ideals of the Cadet Movement and all its
members. Loyalty and love for country
must be deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of all cadets; these are imbued
in the cadets by way of their commitment to serve the corps through maintenance
of high discipline and training standards.
Professionalism–
exemplary conduct together with strong moral strength to differentiate right
from wrong; honesty and trustfulness to accomplish tasks with pride and
diligence.
Leadership – role
modeling and influencing fellow-cadets to aspire to their highest potential
both academically and in WEBCC training and activities, leadership by example
and through involvement with peers and subordinates.
Mutual
Respect – genuine concern for the well being of fellow cadets
during and outside training; this care and concern will facilitate esprit de
corps and maintain a high level of morale and cohesiveness in the WEBCC.
Adventurous
Spirit – the spirit, daring and passion to venture into the
unknown, and explore the undiscovered and unchallenged realms; this adventurous
spirit would widen the perspective and outlook of our cadets.
Integrity – the
courage and commitment to exemplify trust sincerity and honesty.
The Cadet Corps was founded in
1946 by Wilbert E. Burgie and reactivated and incorporated in 2011 by a
dedicated group of former members of
Camp
Minisink and the Minisink
Cadet Corps. These individuals still
believe that our youth of today needs to be encouraged; provided leadership,
build self-confidence, self esteem and to provide effective training
opportunities for our experienced and emerging youth.
The Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
Corps asked the community if they were ready for the challenge because we are
looking to produce tomorrow’s leaders today.
The challenge was accepted by the community and the management of
Co-op
City
and hence the rebirth, of the Cadet Corp.
The Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
Corps program is for young boys and girls ages 8 – 24 who are interested in
participating in a variety of challenging and rewarding activities.
Keys to Success
- Establish a strong network
of support with the school systems, the juvenile court system and other
like mind community based organizations
- Launch a series of
fundraising activities that will successfully fund the expanding program.
- Establish an effective
training program for mentors that will increase their ability to be
successful communicators.
- Establish an effective
monitoring system to protect both the youth and the mentor.
Our youth
will be matched with a caring adult volunteer who is trained to focus on
positive reinforcement, trust-building, and the achievement of goals, by
engaging youth in one-on one outing and group adventures in the community.
Ongoing
training will continue with mentors on individual case management throughout
the year.
Services
The goal of the Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
Corps is to:
- To develop in youth attributes of good
citizenship and leadership
- To promote physical fitness
- To stimulate the interest of youth to
give back to their community
- To teach the importance of education,
teamwork and cooperation
- Emergency Preparedness Training
The Cadets are encouraged to
become active, responsible members of their communities. They learn valuable life and work skills like
teamwork, leadership, and citizenship.
The Cadets also reap the personal benefits of increased self-confidence, physical fitness,
learning how to take initiative, and
how to make decisions. The Cadets make a valuable contribution to
the
New York
communities on a daily basis in terms of environmental, citizenship and
community activities.
It has been suggested that the
cadet corps is preparation our youth for a career in the military, but it is
really about preparing for life; about developing the skills, the qualities and
the confidence that will allow these young people to prosper and contribute to
society not only now but in the future.
REWARDS
One of the reasons that youth
participate in the Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corp is because of the rewards. The trophies and plaques often represent the
deeper personal satisfaction they get:
- Sense of accomplishment
- Recognition from their peers and mentors
- Once in a life time experiences
- Life-long friends
- A chance to showcase their talents and maturity
- Self-confidence, self-discipline, self-esteem
and increased self-awareness
- Community involvement
- Cadets also get other rewards
out of the program
- Lots of FUN activities
- Chance to travel nationally and internationally
- Summer employment
- Scholarships and bursaries
- School credits for participation
- The learning of new skills
Cadet leaders encourage all
cadets to incorporate these goals into their daily lives. The Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corp has
succeeded in producing responsible, active and engaged members of society when
cadets embrace these important principles into their lives.
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps is
a program that is in direct response to the growing number of young people that
are either falling through the cracks at school or are already entangled with
the juvenile court system. The Corps
offers at-risk youth the opportunity to make a dramatic change in their
lives. The program is positioned to be most assessable to young people
who otherwise would be swept into the juvenile court system or frequent school
detention.
The goal of the program is to
identify youths who are going have a turbulent transition to adulthood and
offer positive support system to avoid the pitfalls that can derail their
lives. The focus is slightly different at each level. At the
elementary school level, mentors strive to guide the young person back into the
mainstream of class activity in order to destroy the negative reinforces that
can turn a student off to school. With middle school students, Wilbert E.
Burgie Cadet Corps will provide mentors that serve as developmental role
models for young people looking for direction. Sometimes it is as easy as
a young person identifying with his mentor rather than a person involved in
criminal or destructive activities. Once a student has entered high
school with a history of classroom disturbances and poor academic skills, it
takes a tremendous proactive effort to assist a student in redirecting their lives. We have found that group activities can
service as a powerful reinforce of hopeful behavior.
Currently, middle school youth’s
disturbances the majority of students being served by Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
Corps. Elementary children represent a critical group as they progress
through school. Children between the ages of 5 to 11 disturbances
close to 40% of the children attending
New
York public schools. It is projected that
within three years, 50% of the system's students will be in middle
school.
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps has
a number of market focuses that are key to the program's success.
- Youth who are overcoming
stressors in their lives, such as poverty, discrimination, abusive
situations, addictions, unstable homes, and academic life, are the primary
marketing focus of the corp. Mentoring programs foster positive changes
through goal setting, self-discipline, skill development, and friendship.
- Families are also the
marketing focus when adult mentors are able to help youth work on
solutions for their family stresses, and provide an objective but caring
sounding board. As a result, many youth and their families report improved
relations at home. Families must buy into the benefit from our United
Parenting program, a 10-month series of custom-designed information and
discussion groups that enrich parenting effectiveness, especially in the
area of cognitive skills associated with family management practices.
- Marketing also attracts
mentors to the Cadet Corp because they care about kids and their
community. The typical mentor-youth relationship demands a commitment that
must be sold to the potential mentor. For most mentors, this experience
changes their lives, taps their inner resources, and challenges their
convictions and beliefs.
- Ultimately, WEBCC is
marketed to
New York
as a critical social support system young people. WEBCC impacts how many
other city services will be called in to respond to destructive behavior
in the community.
The target market of WEBCC are
young people ages 8 to 16 that have developed destructive habits
that will lead down a path of hopelessness. WEBCC has created a series of
mentoring programs that pair the young person with a trained mentor who will
assist him or her in developing the habits and perspective that will lead to
success and hopefulness in the future.
There are three focuses
to WEBCC’s program implementation:
- First is the creation of a
network of contacts with New York School System, the county's juvenile
court system and other not-for-profit organizations.
- The second is the recruiting
and training of mentors.
- The third is the development
of fundraising strategies.
WEBCC’s management team will
consist of the Board of Directors and the program's executive
director. A team of professional program and fundraising managers
will be assembled to manage and grow the program.
Accomplishment:
Since
the reactivation of the Cadet Corp we have been very busy, we have taken our cadets to Washington, DC to attend the Omega Phi Psi Fraternity Inc. 100th Centennial Conclave “Salute to the Military Gala,” where the cadets were able
to meet and speak with some of the country’s top military officials such as
William E. “Kip” Ward, US Army Four Star General, former Commander United
States Army, Africa Command; Manson K. Brown, Vice Admiral, Commander Pacific
Area, United States Cost Guard; Charles F. Bolden, current Administrator of
NASA, he is a retired US Marine Corps Major General and former NASA
Astronaut/Space Shuttle Commander, Major General Willie Arnold, former
Commander United States Army Officer Training Command (ROTC) and Earl Graves,
President and owner of Black Enterprise.
Our cadets also met a long list of other dignitaries that attended the
event.
When
we first arrived in
Washington our cadets had
the opportunity to meet and interview the then Presidential Candidate Herman
Cain this interview was aired on a
Washington,
DC local television station. This was a life changing moment for all of
our youth and their parents’ who attended.
The
WEBCC performed at the National Night Out Against Crime with the 47th
Police Precinct, went to the annual Reunion of the Minisink Cadet Corps and to
top it off spent a week up state at the original site of
Camp
Minisink in Port Jervis,
New York with the
Minisink Spirit.
The
WEBCC youth was awarded with Certification of Appreciations from both the New
York State Assembly and the Bronx Borough Presidents office for the Community
Service. The Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet
Corps has the full support of Congressmen Joseph Crowley who has given us financial
support and letters of reference.
We
have networked with a number of people and organizations over the years and as
a result we are working to open up a Drum & Bugle Corp in the South Bronx
and addition Cadets Corps in a number of NYCHA building in the South Bronx and
the Northeast section of the
Bronx.
A
number of Cadets have successfully applied and was accepted into colleges all
across the country. One of which was
accepted into
Stanford
University where she will
one day become a doctor. The other was
accepted into a
SUNY
University where she will
become a Criminologist. Our only male
cadet will apply to the
Naval
Academy next year because of the experience spent
with the Omega’s in
Washington,
DC.
The
Wilbert E. Burgie Cadet Corps started with 35 youth, right now our numbers are
small, but when the original Minisink Cadet Corps started Wilbert Burgie had
only nine boys and the numbers rose to over 10,000 cadets over its twenty or
more years span before its deactivation.
We believe that this is a much needed program
In
August 2015 we will be taking our youth to the to the original Camp Minisink located in Port Jervis, NY, we expect to
take approximately 100 – 200 youth for 11 days to experience a
camping “Extravaganza” of a life time, where they can enjoy mountain climbing, cook outs, zip line, the blob, etc., this experience will be a life changing
adventure for our youth. Our program
provides a value based program that is filled with enriching, uplifting and
will provide challenging activities/experience that will provide an atmosphere
that will encourage, teach leadership and teach preservation of the
environment.
WEBCC
is different from other leadership programs, in that, we are a small
not-for-profit program that does not receive any government or grant
assistance. Our primary revenue comes
for our financial conduit For My People Empowerment, Inc., our board of
directors and donations received from generous individuals and
organization. These funds only cover
basis expenses.
Respectfully
Submitted
Brenda M. Francis
Chief
Operating Officer (BOD)