My Bro

Well, my little brother Josh is a pretty awesome kid. This last week, over Martin Luther King Day, he was given a youth award for service in the community. Only a handful of high school aged kids throughout the state received the award, and is accomplishments (in my opinion) far outweighed anything that the other kids were doing. Take a look at the letter of reccomendation written by his high school counselor. This is why he is one of my heroes.

It’s with enthusiasm and a lot of gratitude that I nominate Josh Bagley for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Youth Leadership Award. In terms of social action, positive change, and building bridges among cultures and communities-I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the whole country, let alone the State of Utah who better exemplifies these qualities than Josh. In fact, if he continues on his skyward trajectory toward changing the world, ten years from now we’ll all be living in a better world, thanks to Josh Bagley, who started with his own community right here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have a feeling too that there will be many people who will say about Josh, “That man changed my life, and he was still just a kid.” Let me tell you why I’m the one who has experienced firsthand why Josh is so deserving of the Youth Leadership award.

I’ve had the chance to get to know Josh over the past few months, after receiving a phone call from him. He had read a front-page story in the Deseret News in late July about the housing crisis that hundreds of Utah’s newly resettling refugees were facing. The article detailed how many of our newest, most vulnerable community members were being forced to move away from Hartland apartments, the complex they were living in. Yet again, families were being forced out of their homes to find refuge elsewhere. What made this tragedy so profound was the loss of the many resources that had taken the community years to create (to give you an idea: situated within the complex were a HeadStart program, ESL classes, after-school programs, University of Utah Neighborhood Partners with their abundant resource of translators and assistants there for them, and more), as well as the close-knit community of refugees who supported one another. Their mass evictions represented a true crisis. one that called for the larger community to respond in order to keep it from having a disastrous impact..

Josh called me because my name was in the article as someone who had been involved with them, and Josh wanted to find out what he could do to get involved.

I received many heartfelt phone calls over that article. Really, such an outpouring of compassion by the community was quite amazing. But few of the people who called me were able-for one reason or another–to take action, and fewer still who remained committed to the refugees. Josh has been the one person among the many who’s not only taken action, he has used his imagination, resources, and his electric personality to find effective and meaningful ways to reach out and support this community. What’s more, Josh has been an extraordinary catalyst for bringing many of his friends, family, and immediate community to the doors of the refugees to begin building friendships and relationships that will hopefully sustain all of them for years. Since Josh and I spoke on the phone, he has steadily continued to seize opportunities to help connect refugees with members of the community in a number of ways, a few of which I’ll share.

Only a few weeks after our first phone conversation, Josh arranged to bring his neighbors and friends to a picnic in the park, in order to meet the refugees. He kept telling me how many of his community were coming, but he was so young, and he seemed so idealistic, I didn’t take him very seriously. But shockingly and wonderfully, as promised, Josh and about thirty or so of his family and friends arrived at the park, eager and excited to hang out with the forty or so refugees who came too. All told there were easily 80 of us-refugees and friends like-who had a lot of fun getting to know one another a little better. It was another incredible example of how one young kid with a vision can make a huge difference by rallying his family and friends and then organizing a gathering.

As a way to build a bridge to the refugees, our family holds weekly tutoring sessions and helps kids with homework and moms with language. Josh has brought his friends and come to tutor a child, one-on-one, in whatever he or she was needing help with.

Josh has also been helping tend a garden, created for the purpose of growing produce to support those in need. He has been able to deliver fresh vegetables and fruit to the refugees on a few occasions, and at Halloween, he delivered pumpkins. Not only was he delivery boy, Josh brought ten of his friends along with him, and each sat down next to a refugee child and carved a pumpkin with them. There was a big mess to clean up, and even bigger smiles when it was all done.

Speaking of Halloween, Josh also stepped up when it came time to take kids trick-or-treating. Once again, he made sure to tell all of his friends about it, and once again, about ten of his friends showed up and helped dress kids and then take them trick-or-treating. Thanks to Josh, twenty or so kids got to go trick-or-treating, and we all know how trick-or-treating ranks with kids. “Candy!!”

I’d like to say that I’ve been really good at following up and motivating people to stay actively involved in these people’s lives, but I’m a busy person. Okay, really I’m just not very organized all the time. And that is what has impressed me: Josh has been completely motivated on his own to get involved, and even when I wasn’t as responsive as he probably would have liked, Josh just kept at it. I believe the tenacity he demonstrates speaks to his values and his deep commitment to the refugees.

Another example of Josh’s dedication came to light just a couple weeks ago, when twenty or so of us in the community who want to keep this bridge open between the long-time residents of Salt Lake and the newly resettling refugees gathered to discuss how to work together as a team. It was chaotic and at times frustrating, because we all struggle with trying to nail down what we can do in the face of so much often overwhelming need. I worried through the meeting that people would get so overwhelmed or discouraged that they might lose steam for the cause. Afterward, I asked Josh how he was feeling and he said, “This is awesome. I’m totally excited to get ready for Christmas!” It was his reaction that energized me, and at that moment, I deeply appreciated a young man who could remain committed to the bigger picture and to see the possibilities for enormous good that his time and efforts can effect.

Please take my word for it, Josh Bagley is completely deserving of this award. But if he doesn’t get it, I’m sure he’ll remain undeterred in his efforts to build a bigger, happier, more diverse community here in Salt Lake.

Respectfully,

Merrie Campbell-Lee

I think it’s fair to say that he isn’t your average teenage kid. We need more people like him in this world.

P.S. Josh, one day you will thank me for putting this up here. Congrats on your award. I’m proud of you for making the world a better place.