Twice Retired, Twice Blessed: Working With At-Risk Inner-City Youth via YES!Atlanta
I recently “retired” again, but not exactly like I did in 2007 after 45 years of designing and building houses in Atlanta. This time, it was from a variety of volunteer capacities I’ve held for the past 27 years with YES!Atlanta, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Atlanta’s at-risk inner-city youth.
A Night at the Hospital
My 27-year volunteer stint with YES!Atlanta can be traced back to the mid 1980’s when I was a volunteer “hand-holder” in the Surgical Emergency Clinic of Grady Memorial Hospital. Late at night, for several hours once a week, I would do whatever I could non-medically for the folks in various stages of disrepair who were waiting, sometimes for hours, to be seen by the busy staff.
One hot summer night in 1988 I came upon a young black man, handcuffed and dressed in an orange jump suit stamped “Prisoner.” On his routing sheet a doctor had written that the patient had swallowed glass fragments while in his cell. He had been examined and was medically cleared, so he would be returned shortly to the Fulton County Jail.
When I gave this news to the youth, his response, in a voice full of despair, was, “Why bother? I’ll be dead soon, I know it.”
My usual platitudes just stuck in my throat, for I knew that, given his circumstances, by the time he reached his mid-twenties it was likely that he would be unemployed, on drugs, in jail, or dead.
Mumbling something or other, I continued my rounds. When I came back to where he had been, he was gone, but the memory of his hopelessness stayed with me, then and for the years since.
A New Opportunity to Make a Difference With Youth
Several weeks later, while attending a seminar devoted to making a personal difference in the world, someone announced a new program they were bringing to our city called YES!Atlanta. They would be working with at-risk inner-city youth to give them tools to open new life possibilities. The goal would be graduation from high school, with the reduction or elimination of self-defeating behaviors that prevented their maturing into fulfilled and contributing members of their community.
YES! stands for “Youth Experiencing Success.” Thinking back to the youth in the orange jump suit – I realized this was something I could have offered him that might have dispelled his hopelessness and despair. So I joined right up.
Soon after, they needed a volunteer Executive Director. Almost without thought, I raised my hand. That started 27 years of participation in various capacities with YES!Atlanta.
As the weeks turned into years, I worked with and watched inner-city teenagers in our Rising Star program, many of whom could see little or no realistic possibilities for their future, turn their lives around in partnership with their adult Committed Partners. That memory of the hopeless young man at Grady Hospital was my constant motivation.
A New Chapter in Retirement
Late last year, approaching the age of 83, I regretfully decided that it was time to resign my positions with YES! and leave it to the younger generations to continue to make a difference. I have always thought that the many houses I designed and built during my 45 years in the business were my main mark on the universe.
However, I realized long ago, and still believe, that the difference YES!Atlanta has been making with youth, passed on generation to generation, can be a much bigger mark. I trust it will be so. I treasure my time and memories with YES!Atlanta and I now look forward to the next chapter in my retirement.
Michael Halpern and his wife Julie Witt have been residents of Lenbrook since 2014. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michael was a home builder and designer in Atlanta from 1962 until he retired in 2007. In addition to having worked for years with at-risk youth, Michael enjoys socializing within our community, exercising in the gym, and creating Powerpoint presentations on diverse topics of interest.