Polk an example worthy of notice

He influences more than 1,000 students daily at Wasilla High School. He’s a mentor, an example and a humble man who lives to give.

Do you know Donell Polk?

Don’t worry, until WHS senior and Frontiersman contributor Rachel Clark introduced us to him, we didn’t either. Clark features Polk in today’s newspaper in a superbly written feature that shows each person has the power to make a significant impact.

At Wasilla High, Polk shares his life story with students to help them avoid or deal with the pitfalls and challenges he fell into as a youth and young adult. The second eldest of 12 children growing up in California, Polk was introduced to the gang lifestyle early, and it was a route he chose to pursue after moving to the Anchorage area, eventually leading to homelessness and helplessness.

“There have been four men over the past 25 years who changed my life, who taught me that I don’t have to lie, cheat or steal from others to make it,” Polk says in his interview with Clark.

One of those men, he said, is WHS Principal Dwight Probasco, who put his faith in Polk’s ability to connect with kids.

“Whoever thought that with only a high school education I can teach high school kids?” Polk said. “I teach these kids to treat their teachers like their own mothers. … This has given me another doorway to give back — to over 1,000 kids.”

And more of our local youth than we’d like to believe share Polk’s experience with homelessness. A recent Mat-Su Borough School District count shows at least 849 students the district calls “in transition,” who are either homeless or their families are. Of those, 439 are high school students, with the largest number, 167, hailing from the ranks at Burchell High School. With an enrollment of 274, that’s nearly 61 percent of that school’s population. Overall, nearly 5 percent of the district’s nearly 17,000 students are in transition.

Polk’s story helps bring faces and feeling to those alarming numbers, and it’s a message the district takes seriously, said Catherine Esary, MSBSD public information officer.

“I think the message is we all need to be aware of those around us,” she said. “Students are compassionate, our students want to help each other, and they do. Everybody at some point needs something from someone else, and we all have something to give back.”

That’s Polk’s story. With the help of Probasco and others, he escaped. Now he’s giving back to help our kids. And his example is one that deserves notice.

“It’s never too late and no act of good will or kindness is ever too small,” Esary said of his impact on WHS.

While Polk lauds the “four men … who changed my life,” we applaud him for being a man who quite possibly is making that same impact on the lives of others.

Now, aren’t you glad you know Donell Polk?