ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Three Pulaski churches are joining in the second summer of a program of special activities and educational enhancement for black youngsters between the ages of 5 and 17.
It will start at 6:30 p.m. Monday with an open forum, registration and hot dog party at the Pentecostal United Holy Church on Johnston Street. Through Aug. 3, the activities of the Cultural Awareness Redemptive Education program will rotate among that church and the Randolph Avenue United Methodist Church and the First Baptist Church on Magazine Street.
There is no cost to participate in the CARE program, although participants may raise money with activities like car washes to cover costs of some field trips. Applications are available at the three churches, and should be submitted by Monday.
Last year, the some 40 participants raised $600, which helped sponsor a trip to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
During the spring of 1994, suicide attempts by some black youngsters in Pulaski County came as a wake-up call to parents, professionals, clergy and others in the community who came together to talk about the pressures and problems putting the young people at risk.
They developed the first six-week CARE program last summer to help deter school dropouts and criminal involvement while boosting self-esteem and moral values. CARE used a "rites of passage" concept involving children and parents to equip young people with the social skills necessary to pass from adolescence to responsible adulthood.
It seems to be working, said the Rev. Anthony Daniels, CARE board chairman and pastor at First Baptist Church. The school dropout rate, which had been almost twice as high for black youth as for white, "is not dead equal now but it's close," he said. "It's much better."
The same applies to school suspensions and juvenile crime problems, he said.
"The school system has worked well with us, the Police Department has cooperated well with us, Court Services has been supportive. So, now that we're working with the different agencies, hopefully providing some degree of sensitivity training for them, that has helped in the reduction of criminal involvement," he said.
Timora "Tammy" Boyers, who has worked for nearly a year with a Police Department mentors program under a grant which is expiring, and Richard Lewis, a teacher at Pulaski Middle School, will be directors of the summer program. Boyers was one of its directors last year.
The program includes conflict resolution training, cultural awareness development particularly focusing on black art, music, dance and literature, and positive Afri-centric values enhancing the ability to be in control of one's life.
CARE was incorporated in March as a community development corporation, and its board is working on the procedures necessary to qualify it as a nonprofit agency so it can receive tax-exempt gifts and grants. Daniels said the board hopes to accomplish this before the end of the year, and raise enough money to make CARE a year-round program.
The program this summer is sponsored by the three churches and a grant from the Pulaski County Social Services Department.
Another important part of the program is integrating "at-risk" youngsters with what Daniels calls "at-rest" youth, "meaning we have youth who are at rest with themselves, their maker and the world around them," he said.
"These 'at-rest' youth can do a lot to encourage and inspire the 'at-risk' youth to overcome some of their problems," he said, "while the 'at-rest' youth are also strengthening their own personal skills of coping with the various kinds of dysfunctional personalities present out there in the world at large."
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