"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

by Gail Beran Neils

These words by Martin Luther King Jr. were quoted by Bethany member, Kim Burgess, as she sought to explain the motivation behind her call to work with Community for Youth (CFY). CFY is a Seattle-based non-profit working alongside high school students from 3 of Seattle’s lowest performing schools, helping them to find greater purpose and meaning in their lives.

One might wonder how this young woman from a white family in Queen Anne started working with youth in the mainly non-white school systems of South Seattle. Kim sees it as a merging of the faith and practice that was nurtured in her while growing up at Bethany, with daily-life situations she encountered at school from grades 4-12.

Kim attended the Advanced Placement Program (APP) in Seattle’s (desegregated) Central District and became aware that her academically-focused, primarily white, advanced class differed from the (mainly black) students in her school’s main program. It seemed that many of these students felt pressure to act tough, graduate from high school and get a job, or perhaps go to community college.

This racial difference touched her personally when she and 3 white friends accepted the invitation to a school dance and discovered everyone else there was non-white. While dancing, Kim overheard a boy comment that she and her friends were dancing “like black girls.” When she went to the drinking fountain, she saw him with a group of boys and he punched her, breaking her nose. Though he was an honor student, and later apologized, he was expelled and sent to a school with students who had also been expelled from their schools. This incident was eye-opening for Kim. It revealed the immense pressure her schoolmate felt to be “tough,” as well as the way in which the racism he encountered in his daily life had influenced him, and spilled over onto her.

In high school, Kim increasingly struggled with the racial and economic injustice she saw around her and was particularly touched one day by an inductive Bible Study, led by Lisa Hudson, on The Lord’s Prayer. Lisa helped Kim to see that praying the lines, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” petitions God to bring God’s justice to the earth.
Recognizing that she had been blessed by the stability and discipline of her family background and upbringing, Kim wanted to offer this support to others. This led her to volunteer at Community for Youth, where she now works.

Community for Youth accepts 90 freshmen and 80 sophomore-through-senior high students into their mentor program each year. Of these 170 students, 78% are people of color; 75% receive free and reduced lunches, and 80% live with one parent or in foster care with a grandparent.

Kim is excited by the differences Community for Youth’s program makes in the lives of both mentors and students. Students who start the year feeling hopeless to change the course of their lives often end the year as different people, aware of having options and futures. One class leader, in particular, arrived at Community for Youth acting tough. After a retreat, he apologized to his teacher for his disrespect, and to the class for his negative impact on them. As a result, the whole class has started learning, and thus demonstrating that—to rephrase the words of Martin Luther King Jr.— “Justice anywhere is conducive to justice everywhere.”

If you’d like to continue the conversation with Kim about her ministry and work with CFY, e-mail kim@communityforyouth.org.