BALTIMORE, Md. — We report often about kids and teens committing carjackings, robberies, shootings, and other crimes throughout Baltimore. Even as the city marked a historic reduction in homicides and shootings last year, juvenile crime remains a persistent problem.
But perhaps we could learn a thing or two by focusing on a kid like 11-year-old Elijah, and the circumstances that led him to a youth mentorship profit on a Tuesday night, where he’s receiving math tutoring.
To understand how Elijah got here, you have to look at his older brother, who’s also his adoptive father.
Wesley Hawkins runsThe Nolita Project, named after the boys’ mother.
"For me, when I realized I could be different, I looked at my community and said, we could all be different.”
When it comes to grassroots activism, it doesn’t get more grassroots than this: Hawkins started the organization by frequenting a bus stop, where he built relationships with kids and parents. That was in 2012. Today, he can name kids who went from dealing drugs, to earning a degree. Or kids who went from getting arrested, to getting a job.
"I know these kids can be great; I know they can do something different. Because if I made it out of conditions that I grew up in, from being homeless, couldn't read write or count, drug addict parents, forest care, shot as a child, and lived through a lot of traumatic things, I realized - they can do it too.“
He didn’t just “make it out.” The wall full of framed accolades in his office says it all.
"I can teach them that I was 4 grade levels behind, but I sit here with a master's degree. I can teach them that as a child I was homeless, but I now own multiple properties in my city."
At The Nolita Project, Hawkins provides kids with both people, and a place: people who will help them when they’re in trouble; people who will teach them skills needed for a job. And a place where they can come to socialize, learn, or even just feel safe.
"The conditions that people are growing up in, in Baltimore is a large contributor to why people are reacting and responding the way that they do. You can't live in [such a] low-level quality lifestyle and not respond to that."
Hawkins believes the root of most crimes stems from community issues, and it takes a community-wide effort to address them.
"There's a ton of grassroots organizations on the ground every day, putting the hardcore work in, saving lives,” he told WMAR-2 News. "And I feel like they need to be uplifted, outside of everybody saying: 'this elected person is gonna save us.' One man can't do it. One mayor can't do it. One governor can't do it."
He’ll leave policy changes to the government. But when it comes to changing individual lives, he believes he has the right approach.
"How do you get a young man who was once on a corner selling drugs to come to a community clean-up? How do you get that young man to stop selling drugs, to now work a job or graduate high school? You gotta get here, and here first,” he said, pointing to his head, then his heart.
