If you’ve spent much time in Little Rock’s River Market, you’ve probably seen young people in red jackets bustling about. They’re part of City Year, headquartered above the Clinton Museum Store at 610 President Clinton Ave.
City Year is a nonprofit organization that unites young people for 10 months of service as tutors and mentors to keep students in school. This year 24 corps members are assigned to Mabelvale Elementary, Meadowcliff Elementary and Mabelvale Magnet Middle School.
“City Year is a great way to help kids and young adults in Little Rock,” said Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark of Little Rock, board chair of City Year. “It is pure public service, the kind that every American should have the opportunity to participate in.”
Along with Little Rock, City Year’s locations include Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and Washington, D.C. and more. To wear the City Year red jacket, participants must have attended college, be between 17 and 24 years old, be a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident alien and complete four weeks of intensive training. Participation in the program helps prepare them for a lifetime of service and leadership.
Those red jackets are the inspiration for Red Jacket Ball, City Year Little Rock/North Little Rock’s annual benefit gala that attracts more than 500 business and community leaders and corps members. “It is a chance to bring people together and celebrate the spirit of public service that City Year embodies,” Clark said.
Red Jacket Ball starts with a cocktail reception and silent auction from 6-7 p.m. Friday, March 30, at the Wally Allen Ballroom of Little Rock’s Statehouse Convention Center, then continues with dinner, a program and a live auction from 7-9 p.m. Auction items include a weekend getaway on the Little Red River, fashion items from Vesta’s, a week in a Miami vacation home and a Lamar billboard.
An after-party with music by Rodney Block follows from 9 p.m. to midnight.
The 2012 Lifetime of Service Award will be presented to Gov. Mike Beebe, a champion of education and economic development, and First Lady Ginger Beebe, an advocate for women’s and children’s issues. The awards come with signature City Year red jackets.
“Governor Beebe has been a great governor, and Arkansas is lucky to have him,” said Clark, whose wife, Gert, received the award in 2006. “First Lady Beebe has been a wonderful leader in so many activities in Arkansas.”
Co-chairs for the Red Jacket Ball event committee are Kirk M. Bradshaw, financial advisor with Edward Jones Investments, and John W. Allison, chairman of the board for Home BancShares, which operates Centennial Bank.
Ball tickets are $150, and after-party tickets are $40. Cocktail attire is suggested. For tickets and more information, call (501) 707-1400.
Clark, who served 33 years in the US Army, became City Year board chair “through my good friends Eli Segal and Alan Khazei, the founders of City Year, who so graciously encouraged my involvement and the founding of the Little Rock Chapter” in 2004. His chairmanship, he explained, “helps to provide an overall direction and encouragement to the program.”
City Year, he continued, deserves support because it “is a two for one—you get great help for youngsters in school through proven performance enhancement and great leadership enhancement for young adults.”
The Red Jacket Ball
when: 6 p.m. to midnight, Friday, March 30
where: Statehouse Convention Center, Wally Allen Ballroom
tickets: $150 per person; after party $40 per person
info: 707-1400, CityYear.org/LittleRock