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Million Father March to take children to school

A group of activists wants inner-city fathers to walk their children to school Tuesday, the first day of class, as part of a national campaign to get fathers involved in their children's education.

David Fattah (center) and other organizers of the local Million Father March at City Hall to explain the initiative. (DAVID SWANSON/Staff Photographer)
David Fattah (center) and other organizers of the local Million Father March at City Hall to explain the initiative. (DAVID SWANSON/Staff Photographer)Read more

A group of activists wants inner-city fathers to walk their children to school Tuesday, the first day of class, as part of a national campaign to get fathers involved in their children's education.

The campaign is part of the now-annual Million Father March, which started in Chicago in 2004 and has spread to hundreds of cities. In Philadelphia, this is its eighth year.

The goal of the campaign is to get fathers from all over the city to go with their children to school and meet the teachers and principal.

"Young people do better with parental involvement," said David Fattah, head of the House of Umoja, the West Philadelphia organization coordinating the march. "It can eliminate violence; it can eliminate poverty."

Fattah said the hope is that the fathers who take their child to school on the first day will remain committed to that child's education.

"The point of this is to ring the bell and wake up urban males," Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. said at Tuesday's announcement at City Hall. The Million Father March has mostly targeted black males in urban areas.

Karen James, the Philadelphia School District's director for family and community engagement, said that she would love for the fathers of all 180,000 students in the district to participate in their child's first day. However, she said, she expects, based on previous years, that only a couple hundred fathers will.

Kaleaf Wiggins, 26, is a father who plans to walk his 8-year-old daughter to Overbrook School on Tuesday.

"This father thing actually excites me," Wiggins said during the announcement in City Hall.

Wiggins said that his daughter's grades had been slipping last year, but once he started helping her and showing interest in her schoolwork, her grades started improving.

"I know the difference it makes when a father steps in," Wiggins said.