“Spark Mentoring”
By Tracy Gragston Jr.

Brothers are double duty

My name is Tracy Gragston. Jr. While I am not an HPCUMC member, I was mentored by a church member and his family seven-eight years ago. I played basketball in your gym during my Walnut Hills High School years. Following high school graduation, I attended Eastern Kentucky University and now work in our local juvenile justice system. I plan to go to law school.

And I am a mentor.

For the past year, I've had the privilege of mentoring a brothers named Kendell and Kincaid. Both are students at the John P. Parker Elementary School in Madisonville. Kendell, 13, and Kincaid, 12, are very energetic and intelligent young people who enjoy sports, drawing, and cartoons. Both make good grades and are very polite.

In many ways, they are typical kids. However, their circumstances differ from average children. Kendell & Kincaid's mother is incarcerated at the Marysville Correction Facility for Women; she is serving a 29-year-to-life sentence for murder. The young men speak to their mom about once every two weeks and visit her once every few months. The boys are raised along with two older sisters and a newborn brother by their father Kenneth. Kenneth overcame a drug addiction years ago to acquire custody of all of his children. The father's daughters are also involved in a mentoring program through the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative's (CYC) "Spark Program."

“Spark” addresses the special needs of children who have incarcerated parents; the number of these families is on the rise and no decline is in sight. Once a parent is incarcerated, his/her children's risk for future incarceration skyrockets. Children of incarcerated parents typically do poorly in school and exhibit significant behavior problems; these issues can be traced to lack of parental interest.

We have the potential to change a child's destination from prison to college campus by just spending time with them. The Cincinnati Youth Collaborative's "Spark Program" is still in need of volunteers. If you are interested in making the biggest difference in a child's life destination, please contact August Grady, the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative's S.P.A.R.K. Project Coordinator (at 475-4191,agrady@cycyouth.org ).