Second in a series
Re “To the Rescue in South Los Angeles”
[img]1636|exact|Founders Karen and Keith Johnson||no_popup[/img]
When the entrepreneur/youth minister Keith Johnson and his fleet of volunteers fan across South Los Angeles and recruit in-need boys and girls for the seven-year-old Falcons Youth and Family Services, what appealingly seems to distinguish their organization is that they are building whole children to last a lifetime, not a flash.
A wall full of human services agencies, across South Los Angeles and the entirety of the County offer similar assistance.
“One of the factors that distinguishes us,” Mr. Johnson says, “is that we are 95 percent volunteer. There are programs in the city that write wonderful grants. They do, I guess, good work.”
And then he turned a beautiful phrase.
“Our engine is powered by passion. We have men and women who are committed to reaching back and giving back.”
To say it slightly differently, because Mr. Johnson modestly would not, he and his team deploy an old-fashioned concept.
They seek to inspire children in a world dripping with cynicism.
That is a bold, ambitious task that cannot be evaluated by a yardstick, but by internal and external perspiration as years of these boys and girls roll by.
Rounding Out a Child
“We utilize several different tools,” Mr. Johnson says from a second-floor office at the New Pleasant Hill Church at 96th and Vermont.
“We do mentoring, character development and academic enrichment.”
Often from socially or financially troubled homes, the boys and girls range from ages 6 to 15 in the football division, and through age 18 otherwise. On the average, they spend four of their growing years with the Falcons.
Mr. Johnson opened the doors in 2005 as strictly a youth football enterprise, Pop Warner League football. Two years along, the hip-hop entertainer Snoop Dogg decided to fund a spate of youth programs. The Falcons –so named because Mr. Johnson’s wife Karen was a fan of quarterback Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons – immediately expanded into a full-service, community-based agency.
How does Mr. Johnson know when he has been successful with a child?
There are various barometers, he says.
“Each child has his own sets of barriers and challenges. We have some kids who do extremely well in school, but their behavior at home isn’t necessarily acceptable. We have some kids very mannerable both at home and at school, but their grades are not where they need to be.
“It’s a case-by-case scenario. We look at these kids, find out what their challenges are, and we build a program around making sure that they excel.
“Whether that comes through monitoring their grades in school, from parent feedback or simply comes from the kid making his own admission that this is where he needs help – that is what I mean taking them case-by-case.”
(To be continued)
