What could a neighborhood church without money do but open its doors?
Monte Clinton, who became Lay Leader in 1968, coined the name PRY (Project Reach Youth). I remember him explaining the acronym at the congregation's annual meeting. "PRY," he said, "has two purposes. The first is to pry young people off the street corner outside and get them into our church basement for programs that will help them survive and thrive. The second is to pry members of our congregation out of these pews and get us helping as teachers and mentors."
Pastor Klaus Kingsdorf from St. Matthew-Immanuel Lutheran Church on 7th Street embraced that vision, and he made contact with Wagner College, which has deep roots in the Lutheran tradition.
We opened the doors for Friday night programs, and kids came.
But before long, Monte and other leaders spent every Friday afternoon chasing around for tools, wood, fabric, paint, glue, flour, cookies, fruit juice. Every week, a caravan of cars headed out to Staten Island for the Wagner students who became mentors. More important than the projects were relationships and conversations. Lots of voices until 9:00, and then students walking kids home. After clean-up and debriefing, back into cars for the trip back across the new Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
Within a year, we saw how many youth needed homework help, and we added tutoring programs on Tuesday nights. College trips came later.
Students from Union Theological Seminary came to Park Slope and threw themselves into this work. One of them, Fred Melton (Photo below, back row-center), became the first executive director of PRY. He and others incorporated PRY, built its financial base, enlarged its vision, refined its mission.
During the day of PRY's 40th Anniversary Celebration, April 24, 2008, some of PRY's founders shared their stories with Park Slope UMC Pastor Herb Miller. (Front row, from left): Rev. Herb Miller, Anne Grant, Mickie Martinez DeRosa, Sheila Hanks. (Back row, from left): Jim DeRosa, Monte Clinton, Fred Melton, Dave Young, Phil West. Many others who played crucial parts were not able to come.
Sheila Hanks (red blouse) remembers being drawn to the church because important things were happening. We often shared in large or small circles. The day after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, while riots burned through many urban neighborhoods, youth and adults in PRY gathered in a large tearful circle. We struggled to make sense of King's murder and how we felt. We wept and sang.
Back to the present, we walked down to PRY's headquarters at 199 14th Street. We toured classrooms and sat in a fully equipped computer tutoring center to learn of PRY's current programs.
Rebecca Gallagher showed us lively rooms where parents can leave young children while they take citizenship and vocational classes.
PRY has enlarged and focused the original vision, now reaching out to entire families. Unlike many schools, PRY encourages parents as full participants in their children's learning.
Monte Clinton and others among us had lots of questions.
We learned about PRY raising budgets in the millions of dollars each year. More important, we affirmed the idea of whole families learning together, a concept we didn't know how to do at the beginning.
John Brothers, who has been executive director about a year, took time to share PRY's plans to merge with Lutheran Medical Center. Services of the two organizations dovetail nicely, he said. Each complements strengths of the other.
At dusk, we went to the Picnic House in Prospect Park for the 40th Anniversary Celebration.
Peaches Gillette (right), one of the original PRY youth hugged Anne Grant. Peaches still lives in Park Slope, teaches in Manhattan, and has become an advocate for animal rights.
I was happy to see Rebecca Gallagher (center) again, and to meet Jason Hargrove (second from left), Edmundo Quinones and Heddy Mills. Each had wonderful stories to tell about learning and giving of themselves in PRY.
After lots of warm meetings and greetings, Fred Melton, Monte Clinton, and I (left to right), AKA three bald guys in Brooklyn, shared memories from the early days of PRY.
Jason Hargrove, who grew up in PRY and later served as director of PRY's Project SAFE, shared his testimony. Project SAFE helps youth move beyond the myths of HIV/AIDS to get the facts they need to know. Today he works with youth service agencies across New York City and beyond.
PRY's purpose and motto remain simple: Educate, Equip, Inspire.
Kathy Hopkins, director of Community-Based Services at Lutheran Community Health Centers, told us how eager the hospital is to have PRY provide specialized services for families. Lutherans have reason to be thankful for their contribution to this work, as we are thankful for them: faculty and students at Wagner College, Klaus Kingsdorf and Fred Melton, and now the Lutheran Medical Center.
Toward the end of the evening celebration, Rebecca Tapia inspired us with her story of coming to Brooklyn with almost no English. With humor and passion, she told how PRY helped her learn the basics and navigate schools with her children. She now works for PRY, connecting with other immigrant families whose challenges she understands.
The next morning, we tied the visit together during breakfast with Sheila and Tom Hanks in their home. An early worker in PRY, Tom missed our visits and evening celebration with current leaders.
In the backyard of the parsonage on 7th Street stands a tree as thick as my waist and more than three stories tall, grown from a tiny sapling since Anne Grant and I moved on in 1972. I take that sturdy tree as a parable of planting, waiting, trusting, and rejoicing.
ONE FINAL NOTE: I wish it were possible to list many others who contributed from their hearts along the way. I know many but would inevitably leave many others out.
