Mt. Zion Baptist Church’s philanthropic arm, MTZ Charitable, is marking the fifth anniversary of its Transforming Our and Reaching Our Youth (TRY) program, a milestone that comes as organizers say the need to reach young people in the juvenile justice system is greater than ever.
The program brings community volunteers into the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., on the second and fourth Sundays of each month to spend about an hour with youth discussing topics such as love, forgiveness, decision-making and vision, along with practical life skills.
Since launching in 2021, the program has continued its work with detained youth, while organizers have observed an increase in the severity of offenses for which young people are being sentenced.
Plans for the program originally started in 2016 after there was an uptick in kids stealing cars in Madison. Reverend Marcus Allen and his wife actually had their cars stolen from their garage on the same night, which led him to think about what he can do to help kids find a different path.
“We had a lot of meetings, but we kept running into these issues of confidentiality because the kids are juvenile, so we could never know who the kids are,” Rev. Allen said. “The meetings stopped, and then progress stopped with that. But then COVID happened, and in 2021, when everybody was pretty much coming back outside, the uptick happened again.”
Not much could be done in terms of finding the youth who are stealing cars if they do end up caught. Records regarding juvenile sentencing are not public information and kept strictly confidential in most cases.
When lockdowns from the COVID pandemic started to lift, more people were out and about and the youth took to stealing cars again. This time was different, however. Rev. Allen was able to speak with Judge Everette Mitchell, Sheriff Kalvin Barrett and former Police Chief Shon Barnes.
The group wanted to figure out what to do but still ran into the issue of confidentiality. They were able to get in touch with the Juvenile Court Administrator at the time, John Bauman, who granted them access to kids at the detention center.
“We started scheduling every second and fourth Sunday to go to the detention center, and then Chris McIntosh took over as the new athletic director for the University of Wisconsin,” Rev. Allen said “He had a meeting with me. He wanted to figure out how do we bridge community and campus together.”
Badger athletes also joined the program when their schedules allowed, typically during the off-season. As word about TRY spread, more community members became interested in participating, expanding the range of topics offered to youth, including job readiness, therapy, math, financial literacy and behavioral health.
JP Hair and Design also became involved, offering instruction in barbering, beauty and hygiene and providing participants with certificates they can use.
But one of the most important lessons TRY seeks to impart is vision — helping young people see a path beyond the circumstances immediately in front of them, Rev. Allen said.
“I grew up with no vision. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be, and so that allowed me to just wander until I found what I was good at,” Rev. Allen said. “The only thing they see is the struggle. They see the struggle which their parents are going through, their family are enduring. /they’re not in school. They’re not going to, at least some of them are in school, but they’re not going to class.”
Rev. Allen recalled one student skipped school at La Follette to hang out in the hallways of East High School. They were at least in a school, but they weren’t there for school.
“Most of them, their goal is to get money. So trying to show them that there’s a better way to get money, their education is especially going to be key,” Rev. Allen said. “You don’t have to go to college, but you definitely need to graduate from high school. We’re trying to teach that to them and introduce the military, because I’m a veteran, a service member, telling them about that. That’s why I bring in the community leaders so they can see what other leaders are and what they could be.”
The hour trips a couple of times a month have made an impact in the youth’s lives. When Rev. Allen conducted a funeral service for a child who died, one attendee approached him to give him an update on his life last year.
“One kid came up to me and said, ‘Hey, are you Pastor Allen? You came to the detention center. I was one of those kids that were down there, and now I’m older. I finished school. I got a job. I’m having a family,’ and those types of stories really motivate me to keep going there and keep doing the work I think is necessary for these young men and women,” Rev. Allen said.
To date, Rev. Allen estimates that TRY has reached 1,000-1,200 kids in five years. The overall size of the group that participates has been smaller than in previous years, but he noted that the severity of crimes have moved away from vehicle theft to more dire ones.
The program’s next visit to the detention center will be Nov. 8 at 3:30. Interested community members can reach out to MTZ Charitable via email at [email protected].
