Passing it On

Another successful fundraiser at The Enterprise Center earlier this week. Passing the Torch, our annual event celebrating the handing down of a business from one generation to the next, has become one of the city's feel-good gatherings. As Mayor Nutter emphasized in his remarks, the creating and then passing on of business clout in the African-American community is so significant.

But the thing that got me misty-eyed this year was not the economic piece of it. No, it was parents working tirelessly to grow something of significance so as to be able to entrust it to their children. And, more so than a physical venture, the passing on of certain values, like persistence and hard work and devotion.

It was the daughters who cried because of the momentousness of the responsibility they had been given and the grandness of the recognition they were receiving. But I wonder how the fathers did not shed a tear either. I imagined myself in their shoes, working their whole lives, in a sense, for this very moment. What pride, love, and sense of accomplishment must have been felt.

Whoever cried or didn't cry is not the point. What mattered was good people doing good works, against all odds, and all of us gathered at The Enterprise Center earlier this week to witness a moment to take it all in and be thankful. Well done all around.