The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
PACE VP IS ALL ABOUT YOUTH
Program helps local kids in need throughout the community
Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a twopart series on the PACE youth program
Mike Ferrer has sources. And street toughs are his specialty. All he needs is a rumor and a name of a homeless teen or a kid in trouble, and he has ways to draw them in for life coaching.
For 27 years Ferrer, who currently is vice president of youth development for PACE Foundation, has been working with gang members and hurting teenagers under umbrellas of various non-profit organizations, he said.
Now his program for youth is known also as PACE: Promoting Achievement through Community Education, under the umbrella of the PACE Foundation.
“From the beginning I have only worked with a specific population: The population that gets given up on,” Ferrer said. “The population of the students that are in the schools who are getting suspended. Most of them don’t go to school. With most of the referrals from Lorain City Schools, I still have to convince the kids to join the program.”
Ferrer also welcomes referrals from Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera, he said, as well as from Lorain County Juvenile Court.
“And parents call me when they have had it with their kids they can’t take it any more,” Ferrer said. “So I arrange it. I say, ‘Don’t put your kids in my program. Just tell me their names.’ Then I have my youth, who are downstairs, who I’ve had many since eighth grade, who are graduating, I have them find the kid.
“I just had 29 graduate this year,” Ferrer said. “This is 29 kids I was told were probably not going to finish high school. Most of their problems were anger issues. Most of their problems, like you meet their parents sometimes and you realize what their problem is — dad is in jail; mom is out all the time, nobody is paying attention to these young people. So they’re rebellious. They have problems with authority. So I get them. I have some of my youth contact them and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to Splash Zone. Why don’t you come with us and meet the people from PACE and see if you want to join it?’
“So I make sure they have a really good time,” Ferrer said. “Once they have a really good time I say, ‘We do this program. It’s about college prep. It’s about employment training. It’s about academics, making sure you graduate and go to college. I will not leave you until you are in your first
year of college, and you have a job. You can leave me any time you want. I will not leave you, and neither will my staff.’
“Nobody leaves me,” Ferrer said. “I don’t lose kids. My kids, my rough sort of anti-social kids, I have over 97 percent attendance on Fridays and Saturdays, which is when I run the programs. They come on weekends. They spend their weekends with me. On Fridays they are with me the moment they get out of school at 2:15 p.m. they come down to my class at room 215B until 6 o’clock. Then they come back on a Saturday from 11 a.m. to four or five p.m. Saturdays are at Greater Victory Christian Ministries. That’s every week.”
PACE members are Lorain City Schools students, Ferrer said. And if a student or two from another district needs him, he finds money from a different source to pay for them.
“I’m a grant writer. It’s what I do,” Ferrer said. “I’m not going to turn away a kid.”
Several years ago Greater Victory Pastor Tim Williams, who also is president of the Lorain City School Board, introduced Ferrer to a Lorain Cooperative Ministry, which is comprised of about nine churches, he said.
“Their whole goal with kids, is they were seeing all these kids on the streets in the summer,” Ferrer said, “just walking by the library. But if you walk by the library you would see there are other kinds of elements out there right now. These churches wanted to do something for them. So they started a feeding program. And all of the kids came, 100-104 kids would come here and eat. So then they said, ‘Let’s start music and arts camps on Thursdays.’ And Tim (Williams) just let them use the church. He wasn’t part of it. So I met with them. I’ve been working with nonprofits for a lot of years. I’ve never worked with a church before.
“This Lorain Cooperative Ministry, they were about ‘What can we do for the kids? The Lord gets the credit. We don’t want the credit,’” Ferrer said. “I’m not used to that. I’m used to ‘What’s in it for me?’”
Then Lorain Cooperative Ministry asked PACE to run a camp for youngsters in second through seventh grades at Greater Victory at 559 Reid Ave. in Lorain.
“My PACE kids are the older kids running the camp,” Ferrer said. “Those are the kids who were troubled.
“And my community service projects right now are to feed the homeless today,” he said. “They worked six hours here today (at camp). And six of them are financed by the workforce Development Agency. All the rest are volunteering; 36 have jobs; 11 have two jobs; four graduated early. Remember? They’re not supposed to graduate, graduated early. Nine just enrolled at Lorain County Community College. So I told them, ‘Guys, you’re working. You’re at LCCC, we’re done. I have fulfilled my promise. You guys are on your way.’” “We’re not leaving.” “What do you mean you’re not leaving? I need to put new kids in.” “We’ll be their mentors.” “So except for six of the non second through seventh graders, everyone else is volunteering,” Ferrer said. “We started at 10:30. When we get through today, we will go to the Oberlin Community Service place on Professor Street in Oberlin, and we will help pass out produce, take groceries to people’s cars, and all that. That is what I use to build their resumes.”
His underlying motivation has always been the same.
“I’ve got a job to do and this is my life goal: Get them through high school,” Ferrer said. “Help them overcome those barriers that are sometimes parents, and get them to college. Let them realize that they have so much potential. They have so much to offer. And this is not the end of the world right now what you’re feeling.”