It’s one thing to say you want to help underprivileged children, but it’s another to roll up your sleeves, dive right in, and actually do it. That’s exactly what Pastor Terry Lane did 19 years ago. He decided to sell his $250,000-a-month cabinet-making business so that he could start MetroKids Konnection in Jacksonville, Florida’s most violent apartment complex—the Cleveland Arms Apartments.
Within this complex, Lane saw a huge need and that these kids 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.
Lane said, “You’d have to know their lifestyle and where they are coming from. Their mothers, their grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers never got married.”
He 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 he created MetroKids Konnection’s afterschool program that has proven to impact these kids in positive ways over the years, detouring them off a path of destruction and onto a path of healthy production. In fact, two of his veteran students who grew up in the Cleveland Arms Apartments work for him, helping other kids reach success.
Lane said, “What I do is connect these kids with hope.”
In addition to providing a safe place for these children, MetroKids’ afterschool program gives them the tools they need to succeed, such as school supplies and one-on-one homework assistance. In August 2015, they were given 20 computers, which have become powerful tools in helping these kids with their homework. However, no supply or computer is better than the relationship they develop with a child.
“Unless you have a relationship where you can encourage that child, it’s not going to happen,” said Lane.
His afterschool program is not just based on what the teachers send home. He’s taken a homeschool book called Paddle to the Sea to teach them all of the areas necessary to give a child a well-rounded education. While these project-based lessons teach them practical reasons as to why they’re doing math, they’re also instilling in these kids that they can succeed.
MetroKids Konnection also offers services to adults during the day, such as job training, looking up information on the computer, and faxing documents for them. Then after 2:30, it’s all about the kids. Once the high school students arrive, the girls are required to complete their homework right away because at 3 p.m. the younger kids arrive. At that time, the older girls help them complete their homework. As soon all school assignments are done and out of the way, it’s onto arts and crafts and Paddle to the Sea. The program ends at 6:30 unless evening programs are offered, such as Riot Night at Celebration Church.
MetroKids tries to feed the children something because they know it may be the only meal some of them get to eat until breakfast at school the next morning. Since Lane and his staff work with about 65 to 70 kids a day, feeding them can be costly. When the Jaguars gave them $20,000 in the past for their program, they were able to hire a cook so that they could feed the kids.
“With the new owner, though, that’s been cut off,” said Lane. “Since then, we’ve been feeding them snacks, but even that’s running short due to lack of funds.”
Lane is working on other projects, but everything takes funding. For instance, he’d love to start a school, especially for those kids on whom the schools have given up. He welcomes other people to visit them so that they can understand the needs.
He said, “Why send missionaries to a foreign land. When they fly out of Jacksonville, they’re flying over the greatest mission field in the world.”
The harvest field is ripe, so every bit of support is encouraged, needed, and appreciated.
