By Kim Grizzard
The Daily Reflector
Sunday, February 19, 2017
It is customary for the keynote speaker for Building Hope’s annual banquet to arrive early enough to visit the ministry’s community life center to learn about its mission and the vision behind it.
Judge Bob Armstrong went on such a tour in Greenville last week before addressing a crowd of more than 500 Building Hope supporters. But Armstrong did not need to make a stop at the organization’s Visions of Hope program.
He already knows it well. His work in his hometown of Selma, Ala., is what inspired Building Hope to start the program.
Visions of Hope, launched in October, had its first graduation earlier this month as the first two young men completed the 12-week character development program.
“This all started when a group of business leaders in Greenville had heard of community transformation taking place in Selma, Alabama,” Building Hope Executive Director James Haskins said in an interview. “… Judge Armstrong, in his role there in Selma, really sort of galvanized the resources there to try to effect change for the community.”
A group of half a dozen people traveled from Greenville to Selma in November 2015 to learn more about Hope Academy and Compass Academy, programs that Armstrong had helped start to combat an epidemic of juvenile crime in his community. Those programs have been credited with helping Dallas County see about a 70 percent reduction in juvenile crime in a little more than a decade.
“He (Armstrong) has, since 2005, seen a place, a city, literally transformed,” Mike Williams, president of Building Hope’s board of directors, said Thursday at the organization’s annual banquet at Rock Springs Center.
Armstrong, who first visited Greenville in February 2016 to address the local faith-based organization Called2Business, said he feels a real connection between the two cities.
“There’s a lot of similar DNA happening here in Greenville for revival that I see in Selma as well,” Armstrong said. “Your community’s motivated,” he said. “… I see such a spirit of passion and cooperation and unity here.”
“There’s a lot of similar DNA happening here in Greenville for revival that I see in Selma as well,” Armstrong said.
“Your community’s motivated,” he said. “… I see such a spirit of passion and cooperation and unity here.”
What motivated Armstrong in 2008 was the fact that of all the judges in Alabama, he sent the largest number of children to juvenile prison. It was a first-place distinction that he did not want for his county.
At Compass Academy, youth that otherwise would have been placed in Alabama’s Department of Youth Services receive counseling and job training and participate in extracurricular activities and community service.
Greenville’s Visions of Hope, which is being funded by local grants, has a similar model. Students, who are referred to the program by their schools, meet from 4-8 p.m. Monday-Friday at Third Street Center for an intensive after-school program. Visions of Hope addresses both academic and social issues.
Participants have spent time at The Refuge, a Christian camp and retreat center in Greene County, and have toured several North Carolina college campuses to inspire them to plan for their futures.
The program, which begins its second 12-week session in March, has a waiting list of participants.
As part of the Visions of Hope program, students and their families also receive counseling through a partnership with the CareNet East, a faith-based counseling service.
“What we’re finding is that the issues that our kids face were first faced by their parents, and a lot of the parents have never dealt with the issues that they had as kids,” Visions of Hope Program Coordinator Tim Grigg said.
Most students referred to the program come from homes where there is no father present. Grigg, who has worked as a social worker and a youth pastor, said the pressure on preteen boys to be the “man of the house” sometimes results in their acting out in school or in the community.
“They’re not emotionally ready or mentally ready to handle that type of pressure, so then they become angry,” Grigg said.
Tim Grigg and Brandon Little work with VOH students ©Juliette Cooke/The Daily Reflector
“A lot of our guys come in angry,” he said. “What we find is as we love on them and as we give them the opportunity to learn through that, they begin to learn being angry is perfectly OK. It’s what I do with that anger that really matters.”
Alysia, whose 12-year-old son was among the first students to attend Visions of Hope, said the program has had positive effects on him.
“He’s a lot calmer than he used to be since he’s been in the program,” she said. “He thinks a lot more now before reacting.”
Armstrong acknowledged that helping at-risk youth is a difficult task, and the change does not happen overnight.
“The process and the culture of building hope is not easy,” he said. “It is a difficult group.”
Still, he said, with community support, Building Hope could help create the type of change in Greenville that Selma experienced.
“If you’ll get behind it, 10 years from now or 12 years from now, like us, you’ll look back and you’ll be amazed at what the Lord was able to do,” Armstrong said. “… As people of faith, you’ve got to believe it before you see it.”
Building Hope Community Life Center, 309 W. Ninth St., serves about 100 children in grades one-seven at three locations.Visit www.buildinghopenc.org. Visions of Hope has matching challenge of $20,000 from a local foundation to meet the operating needs of the program, which has been funded through May. To donate or to receive more information, call 757-1927 or email admin@bhclc.org.
Original Article on DailyReflector.com