VIDEO: Oklahoma Native Packnett More Than “OK” for Northeast Indiana

[tube]g8W9pMczs5Y&feature[/tube]

Mike Packnett of Parkview Health (Fort Wayne) was honored as the Indiana Chamber’s 2015 Business Leader of the Year on Nov. 4. Packnett not only leads a successful hospital system, but works to enhance economic development in northeast Indiana.

Promising Future: Initiative Seeks Change in Education Culture

bizvoicepicAs an assistant principal with Wabash City Schools, Jason Callahan recalls sitting and watching parents “who were signing their 16-year-old kids out from school – and how empty that feels. You feel like you just lost this kid for life, and they’re only 16.”

In reality, those students were “lost” years before their official withdrawal from school. Lost because there was no recognition of the power of education or perceived hope for a bright future.

Today, in Wabash County and three other northeastern Indiana locales (and maybe someday throughout the state and beyond) communities are making a “promise” to prevent that from happening.

Why is that promise so important?

“It really is an opportunity for us to tell kids in our community that we care about them, that we care about their education,” says Casey Weimer, CEO of the Cole Family YMCA – the convening agency for the Promise program in Noble and LaGrange counties. “That we don’t want the circumstances that kids have in their lives or where they come from to determine their futures. Dream as big as they want to dream.”

Adds Jill Ostrem, senior vice president of health and well-being at Parkview Health (a financial supporter of the Promise initiative in its four current counties, including Whitley): “It’s been amazing – to make sure kids know anything is possible. Every child’s future should only be determined by their potential.”

Read the rest of the story in BizVoice.