I keep coming back to this one idea. Most teens don’t turn down an opportunity. They never even consider it in the first place, because somewhere in their head they’ve already decided it’s not for them. Not for kids like them. It’s not that they weigh it and say no. It just never occurs to them that it could be a yes.

We are one of the fastest growing metros in the country. Real estate is booming. The tech corridor is expanding. The food scene gets written up in national publications. And yet the wealth gap here — between the Tampa Bay that gets celebrated and the Tampa Bay that gets overlooked — is not closing. It’s widening. The kids growing up in the shadow of that gap are watching opportunity accelerate away from them in real time, and they’re drawing the only logical conclusion available: this isn’t for me.