Kansas City’s crime rate is rising, and so is the number of juveniles being arrested. One man is doing his part to solve the problem. Ossco Bolton wasn’t always at the forefront of helping Kansas City kids. “Just standing where we are right now, I still can hear those bullets,” Bolton said. “I can still hear that gunshot.” He was once a part of a street gang known as the South Side Posse. “So for me, a day for me looked like, ‘Make sure I had enough ammo on me. Couple of three, at least three magazines and my gun,’” he said. But Bolton is taking his life experiences and using them as a source of hope for kids growing up in some of Kansas City’s toughest neighborhoods. “I took something that was deemed negative and we flipped it and made South Side Posse ‘The P.O.S.S.E,’” he said. P.O.S.S.E stands for “Peers Organized to Support Student Excellence.” “It’s helped me grow because it opens us up to a lot of opportunities that other kids don’t got,” one student said. “I really like P.O.S.S.E. I really do like it.”Bolton and others took students from Southeast High School to Research Medical Center, exposing them to things they don’t normally see. “A lot of times, youth, especially living in the inner cities, they only see the same old stuff. You know, we know about the no grass in the front yard, the gunshots, the raggedy vehicles in the yard. The things that don’t say life is abundant,” Bolton said. The hospital is also a place where many of the students have lost loved ones. “Back in the day, I had, like, older family members, they were up here, and they didn’t make it, you know? So it’s just like, as a kid, you was looking at it like, I don’t think they’re doing their job,” one student said. But seeing how the hospital operates behind the scenes changes attitudes, and opens these young minds to endless possibilities. “The team-building and how much dedication it takes to run the whole thing and run all the sections of a hospital,” one student noted. “Just opened up my ideals and thoughts and stuff on how, like, I could play a role in a hospital,” one student said. “Because it’s plenty of roles if you’d like to do anything. And I feel like it’d be a great help to the community.” To learn more about Bolton’s story and others like him making change in the community, check out KMBC 9’s Chronicle: The Helpers here.
Kansas City’s crime rate is rising, and so is the number of juveniles being arrested. One man is doing his part to solve the problem.
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Ossco Bolton wasn’t always at the forefront of helping Kansas City kids.
“Just standing where we are right now, I still can hear those bullets,” Bolton said. “I can still hear that gunshot.”
He was once a part of a street gang known as the South Side Posse.
“So for me, a day for me looked like, ‘Make sure I had enough ammo on me. Couple of three, at least three magazines and my gun,’” he said.
But Bolton is taking his life experiences and using them as a source of hope for kids growing up in some of Kansas City’s toughest neighborhoods.
“I took something that was deemed negative and we flipped it and made South Side Posse ‘The P.O.S.S.E,’” he said.
P.O.S.S.E stands for “Peers Organized to Support Student Excellence.”
“It’s helped me grow because it opens us up to a lot of opportunities that other kids don’t got,” one student said. “I really like P.O.S.S.E. I really do like it.”
Bolton and others took students from Southeast High School to Research Medical Center, exposing them to things they don’t normally see.
“A lot of times, youth, especially living in the inner cities, they only see the same old stuff. You know, we know about the no grass in the front yard, the gunshots, the raggedy vehicles in the yard. The things that don’t say life is abundant,” Bolton said.
The hospital is also a place where many of the students have lost loved ones.
“Back in the day, I had, like, older family members, they were up here, and they didn’t make it, you know? So it’s just like, as a kid, you was looking at it like, I don’t think they’re doing their job,” one student said.
But seeing how the hospital operates behind the scenes changes attitudes, and opens these young minds to endless possibilities.
“The team-building and how much dedication it takes to run the whole thing and run all the sections of a hospital,” one student noted.
“Just opened up my ideals and thoughts and stuff on how, like, I could play a role in a hospital,” one student said. “Because it’s plenty of roles if you’d like to do anything. And I feel like it’d be a great help to the community.”
To learn more about Bolton’s story and others like him making change in the community, check out KMBC 9’s Chronicle: The Helpers here.
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