Sheila Anderson plants herself before the crowded classroom in the old Baker school in Richmond's north-central ghetto. Focusing her eyes heavenward through the stained ceiling tiles, d her rich baritone booms out a gospel song about persevering along the narrow way. Then she levels her gaze on the new students -- most of them, like herself, in their early thirties, black, and struggling to get off welfare and out of the projects with the help of a church-based ministry called Strategies to Elevate People (STEP). "I sang that song because before I got into STEP, my life was a mess," Anderson declares.
Several years ago she hit rock bottom as a crack addict, selling her children's beds out from under them -- even selling her own body -- for drug money. She was homeless and her children were taken from her. The chair-shuffling noises stop, and Anderson's voice quickens. One night, she "accepted Jesus" at the invitation of a TV. evangelist and was miraculously delivered from her cocaine addiction. She started attending Victory Christian Fellowship, the urban church affiliated with STEP, and then enrolled in the STEP Academy. Today, Anderson told the class proudly, she is in college majoring in early childhood education. She has her children back and is active in her church -- counseling, teaching Sunday School, and witnessing on the streets around Gilpin Court, the sprawling housing project where she and the other STEP students live. Sounding like an evangelist, she concludes, "If you're looking to be changed, you're in the right place. Because not only are they going to teach you the educational thing, they are going to teach you about Jesus. And at a time like this, when we've tried everything else and nothing worked out, we need Jesus."
IN THE PROJECTS
STEP has been preaching about Jesus and bringing His disciples into Gilpin Court for over a decade.
First STEP ran day camps and tutoring programs for kids. Now it operates the STEP Academy through which Gilpin residents can complete their GED (general equivalency degree) or enter community college. Fifty women are currently enrolled.
Other educational programs are available in the neighborhood, but they do not go the second mile, according to STEP students. Those other programs, unlike STEP's, provide no personal support or tutoring and the class times are inconvenient for mothers of young children.
Many of the STEP students juggle grueling schedules involving their mothering responsibilities, academy classes, and part-time work. The wearying pace, though, is the least of their problems. STEP executive director Linda Tracey recalls a recent conversation with one student. "She'd been a victim of domestic violence, and in the midst of our conversation she just listed off [her problems], not making a big issue of these things, [saying,] `When my younger brother died' and `when my daughter died,' and `my cousin was a crack addict.' She just presented these things like that's the way life is."
Because life is that tragic for many STEP students, the ministry pairs each of the women with their own "Family Share Team." The Share teams are composed of three to six Christians, mainly from white suburban churches, who cheerlead the students through the Academy's program. Academy Coordinator Inez Fleming firmly believes that the personal support the students receive from their Share teams is the key to transforming the students' lives.
Fleming herself lived in Gilpin Court for 15 years and knows the project's woes. As we drive through the narrow streets between the nondescript, three-story apartment units, she tells me that most of STEP's students spent their childhood shuttling between foster homes. Many have been abused. Some have had to contend with drug addictions. Depression and loneliness abound.
"These are women who've thought: `As long as I'm hidden behind these walls, I'm nothing, but nobody but me knows it,'" Fleming sighs. "To step out, they need to be sure they're ready to take whatever comes and stand naked before the world." The Share teams help the women take that crucial step towards a new life beyond welfare and the `hood.
As we sit against the Baker school's concrete walls, watching souped-up, radio-blaring sports cars pass by, Sheila Anderson gets misty-eyed talking about the loving support she received from her Team when her mother passed away. Then she smiles, recalling how Ernie, a middle-aged man on her Team, taught her 7-year-old son to swim. Such simple acts of kindness make a powerful impression among Gilpin residents whose male "role models" are often pimps or pushers.
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
Since the new friendships cross racial and socio-economic divides, STEP student Lisa Richards admits that, initially, she was nervous about meeting her Team. "But when I got to know them," she explains, "I'd never in my life met so many nice white people." STEP asks the Share teams to meet twice monthly with the students, but Richards says Carolyn Dunaway of her Share Team drops by at least once a week. "They care, they help me, and if I need encouragement, they give it to me," Richards says. Anderson nods vigorously. She explains that her family were country sharecroppers; the whites they knew treated them poorly. "So when STEP said white people were coming, I felt uncomfortable. But the [Team members] were genuine, they made me feel I could trust them. I can talk to them about any issue," Anderson adds. "I wouldn't have made it as far as I have if it weren't for my Share Team."
Suburbanites and students both benefit from the new friendships. Suburbanites say their first-hand exposure to inner-city realities shakes some of their stereotypes. And they appreciate having opportunities to expose their children to inter-racial relationships. "It's also a wonderful check on the materialism in our society," one participant comments. "When you're thinking you have to get your kid a second jacket and realize that the people you know don't have a good first jacket, a dissonance sets in."
Academy students report that they are making major life changes and growing stronger in their Christian walk. The combined encouragement of Inez Fleming and Share Team members convinced one student to kick out her live-in boyfriend.
Some of the STEP graduates have secured jobs previously unavailable to them because they lacked their GED. Others received their GEDs and enrolled in community college for further training. They hope to be teachers, nurses, computer programmers. Their Share Team members build their confidence about attaining such goals -- and some members have provided valuable contacts that have opened up employment opportunities. But the intangible benefits of these friendships are the ones most noted by students and observers. As Pastor Harold Wilson, Jr. of Victory Christian Fellowship explains, "There's just something about a student living here in Gilpin Court knowing that there's a woman way out in the West End suburbs, from an entirely different lifestyle, who cares for her."
He sums up, "The more exposure you get to a wide gamut of people, the more prepared you are to deal with the market place at large. It draws you out of your little closed community; [and] you [learn] to talk to people of different mind sets, different educational levels, economic levels, and colors of skin. That's good."
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