When he built a large cabinet-making plant across the street from the Cleveland Arms Apartments, Terry Lane had no idea what he was getting himself into. After his building kept getting repeatedly burglarized, he learned that the Cleveland Arms was the most dangerous neighborhood in Jacksonville.

Then one day Lane found about five to six little kids under his truck. When they ran off, he yelled after them, “Hey, do you want a drink?” They stopped and came back, and he talked to them. After that, more and more kids started coming over to his plant, and they ended up adopting him.

He saw that the kids who lived in the Cleveland Arms Apartments were starving for more than just food. He saw a low-income community full of single parents, seventeen-year-old boys who had already fathered four to five children by four to five different mothers, and single mothers who found living under the welfare system more lucrative than marrying any of their babies’ fathers. After all, their mothers, their grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers never got married.

Lane also saw a community with no skills, no hope, and a generational cycle that repeated itself over and over again. He saw a community in dire need of a makeover. So 19 years ago, he sold his $250,000-a-month cabinet-making business so that he could start MetroKids Konnection to address these issues and to connect these kids with hope.

Lane is working on other projects besides the afterschool program, but everything takes funding. For instance, he’d love to start a school, especially for those kids the schools have given up on. He welcomes other people to visit them so that they can understand the needs.

Lane said, “I think, Why send missionaries to a foreign land. When they fly out of Jacksonville, they’re flying over the greatest mission field in the world.”

Lane and the MetroKids staff and volunteers invite the community to be a part of this mission field with proven results. To volunteer, call Terry Lane at 904-673-2676 or email him at terrymlane@yahoo.com, and he can give you openings and opportunities. You can also donate below.

The harvest field is ripe, so every bit of support is encouraged, needed, and appreciated.