SILER CITY — A new mentoring and life-skills training center for troubled youths opened this month in Siler City.
The Rev. Barry Gray is bringing his knowledge and experience of more than 20 years in the community to challenge the difficult environments faced by many area youths. His concept has resulted in The Great Turn Around, at 630 11th Street, a facility offering workout equipment, tools for teaching and mentoring and a variety of fun activities for participating youths.
Gray’s aim in creating and establishing The Great Turn Around is to provide a framework for new skill sets for area troubled youths to “turn around” their behaviors in order to be more functional and productive citizens.
“I want to make a difference in the community that I grew up in, from right here in Siler City,” said Gray. “We don’t offer much recreation in town. We don’t offer many places where people can go to be educated with supervision.”
Gray’s concept is to tutor young people — and get them off “the street” and in a safe environment where they can be nurtured. He’s aiming, among other things, to prevent drug deaths. Many young people have a lot of idle time, he said, that’s being used in the “devil’s workshop.”
The center, which opened July 11, serves as “a preventative measure for these kids,” Gray said.
“Just like when you’re lost, you turn around,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to do with these kids.”
Dammian Williams is one of the teachers at the center and a member of First Missionary Baptist Church, where Gray is the pastor.
“We’re helping to mentor kids,” Williams said. “We’re doing a bunch of stuff to show where they’re going wrong.”
Siler City Mayor Grimes, speaking at the July 11 ribbon-cutting, said that the skills taught at the center, and the safe environment in which services are provided, will likely have a positive effect on the community.
“It means that this group of kids will have a safe place, with good leaders and influence of adults that have the good of kids in mind,” Grimes said.
Cynthia Reives, wife of state Rep. Robert Reives II (D-Dist. 54), was on hand for the event. She said she was excited to see what this program can do for Chatham County.
“It’s a second chance to get to ‘do-over’ and turn things around, just like the name,” she said. “It will help more individuals involve the community, and help educate.”
Life skills will be a major focus of the program’s teachings, said instructor James Womack. He and his wife, Delphine Womack — both of whom are retired teachers — are part of the guidance offered in the school. He said that the plans for each student will include a survey for each student to find out the best starting point, and how to help.
“We’ll teach positive character, how to say ‘no’ to wrong behavior,” Womack said.
But it’s not just positive, character-building activities. There will be personal growth concepts, with a future path in mind.
“We’ll talk about money management, cooking, job skills, and how to build a resume,” Womack said.
Womack’s background in human relations in the business community, and his experience as a teacher, gives him a unique background that can help the students he will be working with at the center. The training he offers will include communication skills, business and human relations, and the ability to work with others of different ideas.
“There is potential to grow,” Reives said. “They will be able to contribute, when successful, and talk to their peers, and help the community. This is a different road you can take. Anything Reverend Gray has his hands on will be a success.”
The path taken by these students as they learn and grow is absolutely free, said Gray.
“We’re looking for some grants,” he said, “and getting support from local churches and private donors.”Registration is
under way now, with limited space, so only about 15 youths can benefit from the training. Grimes said that the “Turn Around” center will be a great place for students to meet with adults who can influence their lives in a positive direction, with a strong spiritual component to build good character.
“The really good by-products of a place like this are to have a safe place to come, play games, make friends, and learn better ways to do things,” Grimes said. “It can’t be anything but positive.”
Photographer David Bradley can be reached at david@chathamnr.com.