Elmer Smith: Fundraiser 'Ducky' Birts dreams big and never forgets the kids

"DUCKY" BIRTS worked the Sheraton's ballroom like a seasoned politician. No one in his path escaped unhugged.

I knew the drill, so I was prepared for the inevitable pitch that comes with the embrace.

"Hey, you know we're doing the banquet in April," he said as we hugged. "Can't forget the kids."

This was at the Martin Luther King awards luncheon in January. If he had hugged me every week until his fifth annual Medallion Scholarship Banquet tomorrow night, the message would have been the same.

"Can't forget the kids."

He won't let you forget. But, just in case, he faxed me the names of the 114 students who got scholarships to Cheyney University from the proceeds of the benefit football game he staged from 1985 to 1989, as well as the names of the 26 students who have received book grants and cash stipends in the first four years that his foundation has sponsored the Medallion banquet.

"We've raised about $100,000 from the banquets," Birts said. "After we pay for the food, the rest goes to kids. My staff and I are all volunteers."

The awards banquet tomorrow night, at the First District Plaza at 38th and Market streets, will draw some of the most prominent politicians in town. Between his political ties and his skill at working a room, you'd swear he was running for something.

"I ran for junior-high-school class president once," he said. "That was it for me. My job is to help out in the community.

"I'm 75 years old now. I have a job [working for U.S. Rep. Bob Brady]. If I see somebody with integrity who shares my philosophy, I may support them. But my role is a support role."

He learned it from the best. Birts came to town in 1968 from Camden. His first mentor here was the late Rev. Leon Sullivan, founder of the Opportunities Industrialization Center.

Sullivan spearheaded the creation of Progress Plaza on North Broad Street. Birts' "Ducky's Dashery" clothing store was an early tenant. Sullivan taught him that there was an economic component to the civil-rights movement.

Later, Birts took up a support role with the late Sam Evans, whose American Foundation for Negro Affairs provided scholarships and doctors and lawyers to act as mentors for students preparing for careers in medicine and law.

"Those guys taught me a lot," he said. "You have to pay attention to the economics, and you don't want to depend on politics.

"I want Democrats and Republicans to support the kids. But we don't depend on politics.

"But there was a gap. OIC and AFNA didn't address the younger kids. That's what I'm doing now with my foundation.

"We're going to open a building in North Philadelphia. I can't tell you where yet, but it's going to have a basketball court and study rooms.

"It's going to be for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders, and

we're only going to concentrate on two subjects, economics and government."

He calls it the EAGLE program, for Economics and Government Learning Experience. He believes he can get it off the ground for $500,000 with an all-volunteer staff.

That figure sounds a little low to me. But, even if he can build his dream for $500,000, it's a tough time to be trying to raise money.

"That's chump change," he said. "I'm starting a building-fund drive. We'll do it."

J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the local and state chapters of the NAACP, wouldn't bet against him.

"Ducky finishes what he starts," Mondesire said. "People forget, his scholarship fund was the largest private source of scholarship money at Cheyney, second only to the state.

"He started the Wade Wilson football game and kept it going even when he couldn't get support from the alumni. Some years there were more people in the visitors' stands than in the home stands.

"Ducky didn't even go to college. But he wants these kids to have what he didn't have."

He didn't have a college degree. He didn't have a lot of money.

But he leads the league in hugs and gentle reminders:

"Can't forget the kids."

Send email to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: www.philly.com/ElmerSmith