WP Students Achieve Dream of Visiting White House During Obama Term
Twenty-three White Plains Higher Aims Clubmen students visited the White House and US Capitol on September 24. The Clubmen Higher Aims program is a youth development, academic assistance and career readiness program sponsored in part by the City of White Plains Youth Bureau, Westchester Clubmen Foundation, Westchester County Youth Bureau and the White Plains School District. The program provides 40 young men, 7th through 12th grade, with services designed to help them graduate from high school and pursue college. The Clubmen Higher Aims program has a 100 percent success rate for nine consecutive years of students graduating White Plains High School and enrolling in college.
The purpose of the trip was to visit the White House while President Barrack Obama was in Office along with the US Capitol. The students saw the President’s Motor Cage entering and leaving the White House. They stood in line with Actor Jamal Warner and they viewed the US Capitol, its history, the artifacts and the paintings. They also visited several museums. According to White Plains Youth Bureau Executive Director Frank Williams, the students received praise and comments from visitors visiting Washington D.C. about how wonderful they looked and asking where they were from.
A parent, Nicola Standard, commented: “Barack Obama, an African American man, has been the President of the United States for as long as my son Stuart has been in school. This has provided him with a very tangible role model that he can be anything he wants to be, even the president of the United States. The opportunity to visit the White House with the Clubmen Higher Aims program during his presidency is a dream beyond words and my son enjoyed the opportunity.”
Timothy DuBois, 9th grader, stated that the opportunity to visit the White House while President Barack Obama was in office was a very important opportunity. “It was a great learning experience. I got a chance to see inside the official residence of the President. I also got a chance to speak to Secret Service staff. This experience was very important to me because we never know when we will have another African-American President. This is why it was important not to have passed up a chance to have visited the White House,” DuBois said.
Christopher Latimer, 8th grader, commented, “Last year I went with the Clubmen to visit Washington, D.C. and stood outside beyond the fence. Going back meant so much to me because I always looked up to President Barack Obama because he is the first African American president and I’m excited to walk the same halls he has. On November 1, 1800, the construction of the White House was completed by slaves and immigrants. Seven Presidents owned slaves while serving their terms. As an African American male knowing how they treated slaves/my ancestors, it was such an honor to visit the White House. Thanks everyone for this tremendous opportunity.”
