Building strong children
Mentors strive to help inner-city boys overcome poverty, violence
Three weeks ago, a student at Orchard Knob Middle School was killed by a bullet, and soon after, another student almost died. School Principal Tiffany Earvin said too many of the boys at her school don’t believe they’ll grow up to be adults.
“We need to do something about this,” Earvin said firmly into a microphone in the school’s auditorium Friday. “We need to do something now.”
Many students who attend Orchard Knob Middle School live in poverty that spans generations, surrounded by gangs and violence. Some express a sense of hopelessness and are rarely exposed to the world outside of their neighborhoods, factors that motivated Earvin to do something.
So on Friday, more than 50 men from across the city sat next to the middle school boys in the auditorium, eager to answer Earvin’s call to help.
“Let’s build strong children so we don’t have to repair broken men,” she said, referencing a famous quote by Frederick Douglass.
Troy Rogers, public safety officer for the city of Chattanooga, helped organize the event and said many of the boys at the school lack a family structure. He said they need mentors in their lives to model what it means to be a man.
“We have to be fathers to the fatherless,” he urged. “We’ve got to stand in the gap.”
A panel of 13 black men shared stories about their lives and encouraged the boys, who were listening attentively, not to give up on their futures.
“It’s not just the school’s responsibility. It’s all of ours.”
— TIFFANY EARVIN, PRINCIPAL, ORCHARD KNOB MIDDLE SCHOOL
Allen Green, a Howard graduate, said he understands how tough it can be growing up in certain parts of Chattanooga. Throughout his childhood, Green said, his dad was in jail and his mom was a drug addict who got locked up when he was in the sixth grade. Green described himself as the boy who was hungry and wearing dirty clothes. And he eventually dropped out of middle school.
“But then I decided I wanted to be someone,” he told the boys through tears. “I then had a purpose.”
Green said he returned to school with the help of adults who helped him see beyond his circumstances. “I maintained the courage to beat the odds,” Green said. “That’s what we’ve got to do.”
Now a Chattanooga firefighter, Green told the boys he wants to help them overcome the same odds.
Troy Kemp, executive director of the National
Center for the Development of Boys, said he didn’t always grow up wearing nice suits and was raised by a single mom in a poor neighborhood in Long Island, N.Y. He urged the boys not to give up, no matter how hard life gets.
“Quitting is contagious,” he said. “So y’all hang on.”
Howard School student Umar Mohammad said he attended Orchard Knob
and understands the realities students there face. It can be hard at home, he said, but it’s important to choose good friends and work hard.
“I’m here today because I want to give back,” he added.
Mohammad’s friend and classmate at Howard, Cameron Thomas, said when you come from what feels like the bottom, “the only place you can go is to the top.”
After the meeting, the boys and men divided into small groups around the school and continued these conversations on a more personal level. The men said they are committed to staying involved and mentoring the boys.
Decades of research show the toxic effect poverty has on education, and more than 80 percent of the students at Orchard Knob Middle School live in poverty. The school has struggled academically for a dozen years, and is now one of the lowest-performing schools in the state, according to standardized test scores. The state is hoping to work collaboratively with Hamilton
County Schools to intervene in Orchard Knob Middle, along with four other schools nearby.
Earvin said Friday that since starting at the school last fall, the number of out-of-school suspensions has been cut in half. But still, 66 percent of boys at the school received an out-of-school suspension this school year, she added.
“When kids are not in school, they cannot learn,” she said. “… It’s not just the school’s responsibility. It’s all of ours.”
Contact staff writer Kendi A. Rainwater at krainwater@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @ kendi_and.