Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 4, 1993 TAG: 9303040378
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
OUTREACH CENTER HELPS KIDS AT RISK
Joseph Mayo, an ordained minister and independent building contractor, wanted to help keep youths off the streets and out of trouble.So, in 1985, he financed and built the New Life Church of God In Christ across the street from a park often linked with crime.
"Eureka Park was a trouble spot at one time," Mayo said of the recreational area in the center of the neighborhood in which he lives and works. "I saw a need."
His response to that need resulted in the Feb. 16 grand opening of the project in which the outreach center is working with the Roanoke city schools' Alternative Education Program to keep the valley's youths in school and out of trouble.
Under a prototype pact between a private center and the city's public schools, Mayo and the center's four-member staff offer alternative-education students services that include academic counseling and tutoring, AIDS-awareness seminars, alcohol- and drug-prevention programs, family and job counseling, and encouragement.
"School districts are the only agencies that touch almost every child and adult in this country, because school attendance is mandatory," said George Franklin, Roanoke schools' Alternative Education Program administrator.
"We ought to be in the forefront in forming comprehensive approaches to total education beyond the basic 1, 2, 3 and A, B, C."
Franklin said the alliance with the New Life Outreach Center, as the church on Carroll Avenue in Northwest Roanoke is now named, actually began last year when visiting teacher Peter Lewis suggested that more needed to be done for youth who tended to get into trouble after regular school hours ended.
Mayo, who was interested in an outreach ministry, was enlisted along with School Board-sanctioned mental-health counselors to contact and counsel those at-risk students and their families at home.
The goal, Mayo said, was to help recruit students who had dropped out of school and get them involved in Job Training Partnership Act and after-school programs. The arrangement worked so well the program was extended and refined.
The center recently contracted with alternative education to provide services through June. The center pays its own staff. However, alternative education has input in selecting counselors and reserves the right to reject them.
The staff members are William Fleming 12th-grade Principal George Miller, executive director; Cynthia Bryant, volunteer program coordinator; William Fleming coach Keith Smith, director of counseling; and the Rev. Edward Jones, counselor. Mental-health counselors also will be used as needed.
Mayo, his wife, Linda Mayo; the Rev. Charles Green, president of the Roanoke chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Maryland-based educator Barbara Patterson serve on the center's board of directors. Alternative education has no input on the board.
Between now and June, Franklin said, the center expects to work with no fewer than 100 students. He said he would like to see similar public-private agency alliances between other youth centers and Total Action Against Poverty, mental-health services agencies and churches.
At the grand opening, a William Fleming High School jazz ensemble entertained, while guests sampled a buffet prepared and served by the school's culinary-arts students. Patrick Henry High School's Gibboney Technical Center printing class developed and printed the brochures and program for the opening.
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers called the partnership an innovative solution to several urban problems and proclaimed Feb. 16, 1993, New Life Outreach Center Day. Approximately 75 school officials, business and civic leaders, neighbors and friends attended the event.
Of the 30-some students who have participated in the allied program since spring, Mayo said he counts three particularly memorable successes who were turned around through recruitment and counseling.
"Three children returned to school," Mayo said. "One of them is now on the honor roll, one is playing football and one is attending class regularly. That might not sound like much, but for these children it's a lot."
He said the community's support will be the ultimate key to the program's success. People interested in volunteering time or otherwise helping the center may contact Mayo at 344-1074.