“I Got You, Ms. Deena.”

Bascom Writing Group Prompt: Single experience you had that completely changed how you thought or behaved about something. Was it a person you met? Something you read? Something you were told? Something that happened? Reach down and try to recall that single thing that changed something or everything for you.

“Why don’t they do something … something!” “How can they just sit there all day? Why don’t they work? Why do they walk out in front of my car every time I drive through here? How can they live with trash all over their yards?”

I’m ashamed to admit that these were my thoughts for several years as I passed by the Gonzales Gardens housing project in the heart of Columbia, S.C. Originally built as temporary assistance housing for soldiers returning from World War II, the dense development evolved into generational housing for African Americans made complacent by public assistance.

In my world of juggling home, family, homeschooling, and work, I couldn’t fathom an existence that seemed mired in meaningless muck. I judged the book by its cover.

The city just needs to raise this place, I thought many times.

But isn’t it what we try to ignore that convicts us most? While teaching a literature class for a homeschool co-op, one of the mothers spearheaded a service project. She decided that immediately after each weekly class, we would take our teens to Gonzales Gardens and offer an after-school snack and tutoring program. Really? The first day we set up in an empty, trash-ridden lot across the street from the last row of drab brick apartments. We set up some tables with snacks, unfolded some chairs, unpacked some balls, and waited. Within minutes, no lie, it was as if a colony of ants learned of a picnic feast. From every far corner of Gonzales Gardens streamed children as young as toddlers – no parents attached. These children, most uninhibited, played, and ate, and sat in the laps of white mommas and their well-meaning teens. We colored with the younger ones and asked older kids to pull homework out of book bags.

What developed quickly over weeks was an official program called Prosperity Project. We set up in a dilapidated building next to the vacant lot. Completely naïve with a learn-as-we-go mentality, a group of us moms attempted a semblance of structure to virtual chaos. Nary any evidence of parental interest or concern. So foreign a concept for us helicopter moms.

Yes, we did find hypodermic needles, condoms galore, and bullet casings in the vacant field. Yes, the children cussed at us and ate everything they got their hands on and demanded more – especially of our time and attention.

But the experience began to open the aperture of my narrow thoughts. Reading Uncle Sam’s Plantation, by Starr Parker helped as well. Her extended essay went like this: The African American culture is – generally – close knit, and although work and whole families and church were central after the ending of the Civil War, the Depression brought about government programs intended as temporary aids that became long-term crutches. Generation after generation came to rely on Uncle Sam as provider, and they dropped from the workforce, and settled into a rut of cheap or free housing, food stamps, and Medicare. Parents had more children to get more assistance. The family unit dissolved. The village raised – well, sort of – the children. But the parents, without work and purpose, became despondent to any real hope or meaning. Parker broke the generational poverty cycle in her own circumstances, and her book was an attempt to preach it to others.

What my lens began to allow in, as I loved on the children and tried to meet some of their needs, was the desperateness of humanity. Empathy grew; frustration waned. Little by little relationships formed. The children just needed to know there was more – and better – and maybe their experiences would motivate their caretakers off their trash-laden perches and strung-out sofas.

So for six years, we operated what became a thriving, publicized, respected, and bursting at the seams after-school ministry. We eventually took over an old church building and, at Christmas, even the University of South Carolina basketball coaches showed up with new athletic shoes for all the children.

It was one of the first Christmases with Prosperity Project that opened my eyes for good. I needed to venture deep into the belly of that dark place – made darker still by nightfall – in order to deliver some holiday packages donated for one family. The director regularly strapped a 22 on her hip, but I had no such protection. One of the boys, then 9, saw me drive up and park. Dequantis came running out and asked me what I was doing there. “I need to get these packages to someone in the C building,” I told him. “I’ll help you Ms. Deena.” I grabbed the packages, but then stood there at the car looking at the buildings. Was this smart? Was I going to end up dead - one of those stupid, what-was-she-thinking middle-aged white women – killed by a stray bullet intended for a rival gang member. It happened all the time; why did I think I would be impervious?  

“I got you, Miss Deena,” said Dequantis, reading my fretful face.

He grabbed my hand and held it, all the way into the middle of the dark place, made lighter by his concern and protection. He knocked on the door, he presented the presents, and he walked me back to my car.

Gonzales Gardens was raised last year. I miss it – and the people, especially the children, who lived there. Dequantis is 18 now and tells me he loves me, as do many many others.

I’m glad I opened that book and stepped inside, instead of leaving it closed minded on the shelf. It changed me, forever.