By Brittney Gathen, Special to The New Tri-State Defender
The Northwest Shelby County Rotary Club is extending support and resources to troubled youth and their families with its new alternative sentencing program, which started April 3.
The venture is a partnership matching the club with the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, the Memphis Police Department’s Old Allen Station Precinct, Frayser and Raleigh schools, area pastors and local businesses.
Put all that commitment together and you’ve got an organized effort to show youth – ages eight and up – a lifestyle path more positive than the one that landed them in trouble. Starting out, the plan is to service ten families with youth that have been arrested in the Frayser and Raleigh communities.
Over the course of the two-year program, participants will be paired with mentors and undergo eight weeks of C-FACT (Churches, Families and Communities Training). As part of C-FACT experience, participants and their families will have the opportunity to learn the basics of how a family should function. That includes exploring topics such as food preparation and how the young can serve their elders.
Northwest Shelby County Rotary Club President Lonnie Gauldin said program participants would engage in activities such as creating family emblems. The objective is to provide encouragement that would stimulate them to develop a vision for their families.
“That emblem will stay with them the whole time that they’re training,” Gauldin said. “They have to explain why they put each piece on there. A cross could be because they want to be covered by the Word.”
Multiple sessions are available to help young women with topics such as parenting. In Boys to Men sessions, young men will work with male mentors.
Pastor Charlie Caswell of Union Grove Baptist Church Pastor Charlie Caswell, who founded the area’s new Rotary Club, has hopes for a transformative impact on Frayser and Raleigh.
“Hopefully it builds a sense of coming together and (hopefully) these families will see that there’s resources and support out here,” Caswell said.
“The Northwest Shelby County Rotary Club coming together for this initiative shows that a community of people can work together to bring about a significant change.”
