Baltimore students threatened to go on a hunger strike if Mayor Sheila Dixon doesn?t devote $3 million to their peer-tutoring organization.
“She isn?t taking the youth as seriously as the youth should be taken,” said Daimen Poole, 18, a member of Peer-to-Peer Youth Enterprises.
“The mayor gives us excuses. This is how strongly we feel about Peer-to-Peer.”
Peer-to-Peer pays people ages 10 to 24 $10 to $15 per hour to tutor other children. The group gets no city money but relies on $85,000 a yearfrom businesses and individuals.
The mayor?s budget for fiscal 2009 devotes $17 million to 21 youth programs. YouthWorks, which provides 6,000 students summer jobs, gets the most, $2 million.
Dixon told the Peers to ask city schools chief Andres Alonso and the school board for funding in the school system budget.
This year, Alonso has asked principals to craft their own individual budgets to decide which programs they want in their schools, instead of having the central office
select programs to run systemwide.
“You have to make sure you get as much as bang for your buck as you can and select programs that will serve as many young people as possible,” said Sterling Clifford, Dixon?s spokesman.
The $3 million the Peers group is requesting would pay 1,000 students to tutor 6,000 students, Poole said.
The students issued a demand Thursday for a meeting with Dixon, Alonso, City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Martin O?Malley.
If Dixon doesn?t change her mind, students plan a hunger strike and march downtown starting at 5:30 p.m. May 30.
