HIGH PROFILE: Jimmy Bailey

Former Charleston lawmaker devotes time to teaching entrepreneurship to children as director of YEScarolina

Charleston native Jimmy Bailey was a 15-year-old "tough-nosed, rough kid athlete" throwing a ball against a house one day when state Sen. T. Allen Legare Jr. drove up.

"I saw this license tag that said 'senator' on it, and I didn't even know what a senator was," Bailey says half a century later. "And he rolled up and said, 'Are you Jimmy Bailey?' "

Bailey, the middle of five boys raised in a working-class family, was about the same age as the senator's daughter. That meeting led to a lifelong friendship, and Bailey now considers Legare his mentor.

"Had it not been for him, I would not be where I am today," Bailey says. "So I take that incident and I say, 'If one person could do that for me, then how can I return that same kind of thing to the community?' "

He has worked hard to find a way.

A member of the state House of Representatives 1988-94, Bailey says he's hung up his political hat for good after a failed run for mayor of Charleston in 2003.

"The days of me being a public figure are over," he says. "Politics are over. I enjoy the role that I have now."

That role is founder and director of Youth Entrepreneurship South Carolina, or YEScarolina, a program partner of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

In November 1998, Bailey's mail included a copy of a speech called "Solving the Problem of Poverty" by Steve Mariotti, president and founder of the nonprofit foundation.

Given Bailey's own upbringing — "Humble would be an exaggeration," he says — it caught his attention.

"I thought it was written about Jimmy Bailey and for Jimmy Bailey. I related to it."

The crux of the speech was that low-income children are "born with gifts that prepare them to be very successful business people if someone will touch them early enough in life because they have street sense, or 'business smarts,' " Bailey says.

With that in mind, he launched his bid for mayor in 2003, running against his friend, incumbent Joe Riley, who has served as mayor since 1975.

"I thought that I needed to be mayor to bring this program to Charleston," he says. "But I found out I don't. In fact, it was a blessing probably that I wasn't elected because I can devote all my energy to one issue rather than having to deal with all the constituent problems in the city of Charleston."

Bailey and several friends dug into their pockets to start YEScarolina, using a curriculum developed by Mariotti to prepare teachers to teach entrepreneurship to youngsters. In 2004, 17 teachers completed the program. The next year, 24.

"Then, one of the most amazing things happened," Bailey says. "My friend (state Rep.) Bobby Harrell, who at the time was chairman of Ways and Means, said, 'Jimmy, is this something we should make available to all public school teachers in South Carolina?' to which the answer was 'Absolutely yes!' Almost a day or two after that, (state Sen.) Glenn McConnell asked me the same question."

Harrell and McConnell, Bailey says, both have the same philosophy he does.

"It's teach people how to fish, don't give them a fish," he says. "So Glenn got me a meeting with Sen. (Hugh) Leatherman, who was chairman of the Finance Committee. I told him what I thought we could do, how much money I thought it would cost, and I made a commitment to them that for three years, we'd train 100 teachers a year around the state. And we have done that for the first two years, and we are entering our third year, and we will far exceed that training."

The program has been more successful in the Upstate.

"At the two flagship schools in Charleston, Wando and West Ashley, we haven't had much cooperation," he says. "They won't be happy that I said that, but there is something more important here than Jimmy Bailey and egos, and that's making this available to the kids. One of the most embarrassing things that's happened to me since I did this is, I got a call from an old friend who was trying to find the program at her child's school, and I had to say, 'Unfortunately, we don't have a trained teacher over there.' "

But support is growing.

"Now Joe Riley has said, 'Tell me what I can do to help.' So Joe and I are working on a plan, and I've also talked to (Charleston County School Superintendent) Dr. (Nancy) McGinley."

The program's thrust is about teaching kids in the sixth through 12th grades how to make money.

"How do you get a ninth- or 10th-grader's attention? Talk to them about making a dollar. Right then. Teach them how to start and operate their own business," Bailey says. "When I was a kid, there was no shame in shining shoes or selling peanuts or cutting the grass or what have you. And so what we do is we teach a process to kids. The process is no different from the business model that Bill Gates uses today at Microsoft."

Low-income children "want exactly what my neighbors downtown want for their kids: an opportunity," he says. "But the opportunity for kids downtown is expected. Over there, it is wished for."

One of the best examples of the success of the program is the "rose kids," the young vendors who make roses from palmetto fronds and sell them to tourists.

Vendors now must complete a one-week training course and get a permit before they can sell the roses. Led by YEScarolina's educational consultant, Jenny Whittle, the program has taught business skills to more than 50 youngsters, who are now licensed to sell their wares.

"When the rose kids became an issue, within a very short period of time, that's when we had in the news those thugs with the video and the cocaine and the little kids looking up at them," he says. "This community needs to embrace the rose kids. We need to reward them for not wanting to be like the thugs. If we teach them this stuff, they begin to understand why math is important, why public speaking is important, and they are more likely to finish high school."

He also has arranged for the kids at the Jenkins Institute for Children and Carolina Youth Development Center to have the opportunity to participate in entrepreneurship training and has secured books for those who need them.

Bailey says he spends about 80 percent of his time on YEScarolina these days. The nonprofit operates out of his commercial real estate office, Bailey & Associates. He has yet to draw a paycheck from the program.

"I've been lucky. As long as I can make a little bit of money out of my business — because I don't have the pressures, financial or otherwise, that I used to — I can do this. My children are out of the house. I never lived lavishly. I have my toys, but I don't have the pressure to make money. And I would say that of all the things that I've ever done, this is the most fulfilling because we're seeing results."

Brenda Rindge can be reached at 937-5713 or at brindge@postandcourier.com.