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Jacksonville’s leaders said Friday they want their efforts with the Times-Union-led City of Hope project to yield tangible results for local youth.

About 35 top officials and business leaders met at the newspaper to discuss City of Hope, an in-depth civic-journalism project focused on improving the lives of children.

The project kicked off in early June and is intended to run for several years. The series will touch on everything from teacher quality to education funding.

Duval County School Board member W.C. Gentry said City of Hope may have come at the right time. Momentum for a broad-based effort to improve communities and schools has been building.

“We’re at a tipping point,” he said. “We either do it, or we slide back.”

Friday’s gathering was for members of the City of Hope Leadership Group, which includes Mayor John Peyton, Sheriff John Rutherford, schools Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals, United Way of Northeast Florida President Connie Hodges and Northeast Florida Department of Children and Families Director Nancy Dreicer.

Times-Union Editor Frank Denton told the group that the newspaper’s journalism will be hard-hitting but solution-minded.

“We’ve invited you here because we know you, too, are committed, and we want to propose that we can work interactively in parallel, not in collaboration, and take advantage of our full-court press,” Denton said.

The leaders heard from reporters about stories currently in the works and then broke into small groups to discuss the preliminary findings and offer feedback.

The leadership group said they would like to develop a clear set of goals and ultimate vision for their work. There was a desire among the leaders to make sure the group’s efforts actually yielded results and made children’s lives better.

“Everybody in this room has been in meetings like this,” said Jacksonville Civic Council Chairman Peter Rummell. “And there’s a real risk of this being the flavor du jour. And I think we need to all ask ourselves why this time’s different and what’s going to be different?”

Barbara Darby, president of Florida State College at Jacksonville’s North Campus, was encouraged by the gathering.

“What I see,” she said, “is an opportunity for this community to accept responsibility for changing something that we all know needs to change.”

The date for the group’s next meeting is pending, but the session will be on the record and open to the public.

topher.sanders@jacksonville.com (904) 359-4169

Jacksonville Local News – Jacksonville.com and The Florida Times-Union