The city of Albany, Ga.’s, Recreation and Parks Department’s Recreation Director Steven Belk, founder of the Bridge Builder Program, credits the community for the success of the program, which recently completed its second summer.

“The star is this community of Albany, Ga. — it came together for a common cause. Nationwide we’re seeing challenges among a lot of our youth,” he said. “That age group makes up 60% of our population, but they are 100% of our future, so we have to invest in them. We have to have the same amount of passion for youth that the gang members have — that’s how they recruit.”

Belk shared the way the Bridge Builder Program started is when he read in the local newspaper that the Stardust Skate Center was closing. He said that was happening right before summer and the skate center was a major hangout for kids in middle school and high school, ages 12-18.

Belk had recently returned to his hometown and was looking at ways to increase programs and activities for different generations, and when he heard about the skate center, his immediate reaction was, “We’ve got to do something and I started making calls.”

One of his first calls was to reach out to the “Divine Nine” fraternities and sororities.

“I know every fraternity and sorority has a common cause — service,” he said.

And he also knew a lot of the “Divine Nine” fraternity and sorority members were already involved in the community in a variety of ways.

The “Divine Nine” are the nine historic Black Greek organizations that include the fraternities of Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma and Iota Phi Theta, and the sororities of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho.

Belk was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, and it was there that he learned the poem “The Bridge Builder”by Will Allen Dromgoole.

“It meant a lot to me then and now — building bridges for generations. I knew I had to connect with the organizations real fast. The Bridge Builder Program is designed to create a safe, supportive environment for teens, and the main objective was to foster camaraderie while promoting intergenerational connections. I needed to work with other mentors who could help them immediately,” he said. “Summer was right around the corner, so we didn’t have a lot of time, and this was an immediate need. What type of activities could we provide?”

He knew that if the teens were left idle, it could cause problems. He contacted the owner of the Stardust Skate Center to find out what sort of things they did to attract the teens. The owner told him that the majority of the teens didn’t skate; they just gathered and hung out.

The owner said the teens played e-games, especially sports games and listened to music.

Belk also tried to purchase the skate floor, thinking they could put it in the Civic Center, but the skate center already had an interested buyer, so the city wasn’t able to purchase it.

Belk also called Albany’s fire department and police department, the sheriff’s office, the Boys & Girls Club, YMCA and other nonprofits. He summed up his approach as “I called people who make things happen.”

Then Belk had to get the city’s approval, which he received from the city manager at the time and the assistant city manager after sharing a plausible solution to address the situation. He also received support from city commissioners Jon Howard, and Demetrius Young and the support of Albany’s mayor — Mayor Bo Dorough.

“The mayor is fighting to get us better facilities so we can do more things,” he said.

Once he got all the players together, they needed to foster camaraderie with the teens.

“We knew they loved music and loved to eat,” he said with a laugh. “So we worked with a lot of vendors to provide music and food.”

They opened the swimming pool, played basketball and “we created additional programs and activities that weren’t offered at the skate center,” he said.

The program ran for the months of June, July and August. The city had an additional generation of adults coming in, providing time and help, providing games, bringing job skills and resources to families who needed them.

“Each person brought his or her own unique resources and expertise. The police department ensured safety and built trust between law enforcement and the teens, which was vital,” he said.

The Boys & Girls Club provided the pool for swimming; Albany Recreation and Parks provided venues and activities; and United Way helped connect families in need with resources.

“Everybody brought something to the table — it was easy once we realized everything works better when we do it together,” he said.

The Bridge Builder Program brought the fun by offering music, swim lessons, basketball, video games and creative workshops. After learning what was attracting youth to the skate center, additional TVs were purchased for video games to attract more youth.

Belk said, “We also targeted life skills, character building and healthy lifestyles — we focused on those three areas.”

This past summer was the second summer for the program. The first summer the department had 50 kids participate; this summer it had over 100 kids.

Belk acknowledged that the Albany Recreation and Parks Department provided summer programs each year, as did the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Club, but the Bridge Builder Program took some of “the best practices” from Stardust Skate Center and expanded them by offering additional programs.

For example, the Boys & Girls Club had programs for kids aged 6-12, and “our target group was kids in middle and high school ages 13-18,” he said. So the Boys & Girls Club allowed its facility to be open for expanded hours for the Bridge Builder Program, which operated from 6-10 p.m.

Belk said, “We had the middle school kids from 6-8 p.m. and the high school kids from 8-10 p.m.”

Expanding partnerships

This year, as part of the Bridge Builder Program, the department partnered with Albany State University and brought 200 kids aged 6-15 to the university’s west campus to expand their views of possibilities.

Belk said when the department transported the kids from a housing project and drove past the YMCA, some kids thought it was a local jail.

“They were never exposed to it,” he said. “Now they were exposed to the campus with academic classes, to a large indoor pool, indoor basketball courts — now having the opportunity to be exposed to an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), they’re now saying, ‘Mr. Belk, I want to go to Albany State University.’ That proves early intervention can save lives.”

The Boys & Girls Club worked with the recreation and parks department for its Olympics program and Unity Day program. And Belk said he wanted to include the sheriff’s department because it already had a program for working with troubled teens.

Belk said the whole concept of collaboration and bridge building was because he wanted teens talking to each other, not at each other, and shooting hoops instead of people. Programmers also wanted to focus them on the value of education, so they taught them, “The 3 Bs — Books Before Ball.”

Belk said, “We used a lot of catchphrases to get them involved.”

Belk’s background

Belk shared a little of his background, and why he’s so passionate about this program. He grew up in Albany, raised by a single mom, who raised five children. His mother became the recipient of a program that former President Jimmy Carter initiated when he was governor of Georgia, which made it possible for her to attend nursing school. He said his mom was a bridge builder.

Belk and two of his brothers integrated the Albany Recreation & Parks Department with its football program. They went to college and moved away, Belk worked for a congressman at one time and worked for the city of Gainesville, Fla., but when he learned his brothers, Drew and Jason, returned to Albany, he felt it was time for him to move home, too.

“I’ve done some good for other cities; it was time for me to come home to do good for my city. I knew when the Belk boys got together, we work well together.”

His brother Jason is director of operations for the Boys & Girls Club in Albany, and “I’m now the director of the same place my brothers and I integrated.”

He said his mom always said the Boys & Girls Club was “the answer to her silent prayers.”

Takeaways from the program

When asked what takeaways organizers and participants learned from the program, he said for the youth, the biggest thing was “they really enjoyed the program and want to come back. They want us to extend it beyond summer.”

As for organizers and coordinators, they realized, “It really does work better when we do it together. Even though we all still have our individual missions, one thing we have in common is service.”

Belk noted, “And the biggest takeaway is we saved lives. The kids didn’t fight with each other; they played with each other. They realized they could be from different sides of town or different neighborhoods and can come together.”

Organizers had gang members participate in the program, and Belk noted things didn’t always go perfectly, but there were “no major issues.” Everyone learned from the arguments and quarrels that came up.

“Having grown folks mediating those differences helped. It’s all about growth and development,” he said. “We had to have the same passion as the gang members in order to save them.”

Belk said organizers recently met for debriefing about this summer’s program and to discuss how to make the third year better. They’ve included teens in these meetings in order to get their input and feedback. They’re also looking at how they can incorporate some of the Bridge Builder Program into the fall on a smaller scale since the teens want it to continue.

“I’m excited about what’s going to unfold,” Belk said.

The Bridge Builder

By Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man, going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,

Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned, when safe on the other side,

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,

“You are wasting strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day;

You never again must pass this way;

You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide—

Why build you a bridge at eventide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followeth after me today a youth, whose

Feet must pass this way. This chasm has been naught to me,

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

Next Article: When it comes to homelessness, Albuquerque has ‘A Better Way Forward’