Soaring above plight: Seminar targets youths

By Ed Runyan

That’s the message of a youth leadership seminar downtown.

YOUNGSTOWN — What type of kids come out for a youth leadership seminar at the DeYor Performing Arts Center downtown on a Friday night?

For one, hundreds of fun-loving, dance-loving, music-loving teenagers and young adults looking to better their lives.

But when Brenda Scott, development director of Flying High Inc. of Youngstown and the sponsor of the event, asked them how many had ever been involved with a gang, more than a dozen raised their hands.

What? Gang members? These couldn’t be the same nice kids.

But when she asked why they were drawn to a gang, they gave reasons that sounded a whole lot more like average high school peer pressure than the popular conception of drug dealing for money.

The reasons they gave were boredom, to be popular, to fit in, for protection and security, to meet girls.

Through a four-act skit and conversation with the kids, a message came across: Chose your friends and your lifestyle wisely, because in Youngstown, making bad choices can get you killed.

Flying High Inc., a 14-year-old nonprofit organization on South Meridian Road in Youngstown, developed the two-day leadership seminar as a way to encourage kids to be leaders within their schools and communities so that as many kids as possible will make good choices and have a good future, said Jeff Magada, who founded the organization.

As Magada explained, Youngstown’s poverty rate of 32.6 percent is the highest poverty rate in the country for a city its size.

“Through no fault of their own, they were born into one of the poorest places in America,” he said.

Flying High Inc. helps Youngstown youths age 12 to 21 find jobs, gives them instruction on how to be successful in life and provides recreation opportunities.

Friday’s night’s lessons on peer pressure and making good choices were interspersed with performances by dancing and singing groups such as Mane Atraktion, Legal Affect and Dangerous Squad.

Today’s main attraction is keynote speaker and author Edward DeJesus at 3:30 p.m. He is president and founder of the Youth Development and Research Fund of Maryland. But activities begin at 8:30 a.m., including a free lunch and giveaways. From 9 a.m. to 11:20 a.m., kids will be divided into groups by age and given lessons on topics such as destructive relationships and the value of education.

All activities are free.

The highlight of Friday night’s entertainment was a skit by Glen “Big Poppa” Williams of Youngstown, a 42-year-old South High School graduate who was a “gang banger” who sold drugs, did drugs, robbed and went to prison two times.

Williams and some helpers acted out scenes reminiscent of Williams’ own youth, showing a relationship with a girl ending in pregnancy and Williams denying that it was his, girls fighting, and boys getting mixed up in violence and murder.

After the skit, Williams took the microphone to speak out. “If I can stop [destructive behaviors], you can stop too,” he said.

“The choices are yours,” he said. “What do you want for yourself? We can be whatever we want to be. We definitely know we can be president, right?” he said.

“Are you being influenced or are you influencing?” Scott asked the crowd.

“Some of you can motivate people to get into a fight just by speaking,” she continued. “If you could use that energy for something positive, you could go a whole lot further,” she said.

runyan@vindy.com