Community Foundation, USC Children’s Law Center host workshop

Last week, a meeting sponsored by the USC Children’s Law Center and hosted by the Genesis Community Foundation of Darlington, was held at the Matthews and King Education Center, 115B Exchange Street. A large group of civic leaders, pastors, and concerned individuals from many organizations met to discuss truancy, youth safety and behavior in our community. The group meets regularly to see what we, as a community, can do to help guide our youth into more productive behavior. The goal at this meeting was to uncover the resources in our county so we can use what we already have to help our own community. Three things were determined to be the strongest influences: 1) Extreme Poverty, 2) Overt/Covert Racism, and 3) Perpetrators are usually victims of previous crimes themselves. Included in the discussions (pictured here) were members of the S.C. Dept. of Juvenile Justice, Representatives of the USC Children’s Law Center, educators, representatives from the Darlington County Sheriff’s Office, members of the S.C. Cancer Alliance, Veterans Advocates, representatives from New Vision Community, WellVista and Man2Man. They are (not in order): Gerard Oliver, Brittany Woods, T. C. Sawyer, Teresa Curtis, Tonya Barton, Molly Bloom, Wayne Brown, Deangelo Brisbon, Nichole Gibson, Denisha Smith, Robinesha Stokes, Jessica Cohen, Derrick Dease, and Patricia Sullivan Stewart. PHOTO BY STEPHAN DREW