RE LOG - Spring 2017

SPRING 2017 Ransom Everglades LOG 7 “We did,” said Flickinger, “what we said we were going to do.” They didn’t do it alone. Ransom Everglades and its friends and families helped every step of the way. Two Friends and a Great Idea Flickinger said he and Weiser wanted to change the world from the time they became friends in the eighth grade – they just weren’t sure quite how. Flickinger majored in religious studies at Colgate, then went on to Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan where he earned his master’s in divinity. He worked in Mississippi as a labor organizer before returning to New York City to serve as a community organizer for a Brookyn-based grassroots economic development organization of churches, synagogues and labor unions. After 10 years in the inner city, Flickinger was ready for a change. His annual salary stood at about $12,000, he was married, and he had a baby on the way in 1990 when he ran into one of his former RE teachers, Michael Stokes, at Weiser’s summer wedding in Colorado. Stokes tipped him off to a program in San Francisco that had won acclaim for offering enrichment to students lacking access to great educational resources. Stokes told Flickinger Summerbridge would be a great fit at Ransom Everglades – if only it had a competent leader and motivated steward. Flickinger, immediately interested, decided to take the matter up with Ransom Head of School Frank Hogan. Hogan promised to offer John Flickinger with student-teachers in the early ’90s. Brian Braddy ’05 Breakthrough student and teacher BS in Finance at Florida State University JD at Florida State University College of Law Ransom Everglades Class of 2005 Notable job history City of Atlanta Municipal Court, Director of Probation Services Verizon, Legal Analyst, Orlando Teach For America, Atlanta, 2009 Corps “Summerbridge, now known as Breakthrough, allowed me to use education to remove myself and my family from poverty. Growing up in Liberty City, most of our opportunities come through athletics. Programs like this show kids that there is more than one way to succeed no matter where you come from. Breakthrough meant that I didn’t have to have a subpar education just because of where I lived. Breakthrough allowed me to explore a side of my city/community that I didn’t even know existed.”