Save Our Sons summit strives to guide Jacksonville's inner-city young men

The numbers have been staggering: 10 homicides in the first 24 days of 2020, following a violent 2019 with 158 killed.

In many cases, the victims were teenage black males, as were some of those killed or arrested in this year's two officer-involved shootings.

Eric McBurrows said he had "a little rough road" when he was younger and knows he could have become some kind of police statistic. But back in ninth grade, the now 17-year-old said he learned about Project Save Our Sons, started seven years ago to show young black men a better path to adulthood.

Friday he joined about 300 11th-graders from eight area high schools deemed to be at-risk by police, prosecutors and others at the seventh annual Save Our Sons Summit in a downtown hotel. With the statistics of the past year, he's glad he was there.

"SOS can really change the minds of young men and help them find careers or paths so they stay out of trouble," McBurrows said. "This is more necessary now than ever since there is a lot of stuff going on with people dying day after day. This year just started, and there's a lot of stuff that happened. This is an opportunity for all the young men to actually have better things than they might."

The event began with words from the sheriff, school superintendent, mayor and the man behind SOS, the Rev. John Guns, bishop at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church of Jacksonville. With violent crimes increasing in Jacksonville, specifically with young men, SOS kicked off a new program Friday that will pair some of its at-risk young men with business owners, even police officers, to further help them find a future with high education and jobs.

"We have to put resources behind this; we have to put influence behind it," Guns said. "We have to make a serious commitment to do the things that need to be done. So we announced a new initiative in partnership with businesses and men around the community to spend a year in the lives of these young men."

Guns founded Jacksonville's Save Our Sons in 2013, with an aim to empower 10- to 18-year-old's to make better decisions despite problems like poverty, absentee fathers, violent neighborhoods, poor education and a cycle of wrongdoing, arrest and imprisonment. The group has done multiple programs working with at-risk students and their families, the latest with the Jacksonville Children Commission.

Called the Evening Reporting Center, it works with teenage early offenders to reduce the chances of recidivism through an academic and enrichment program. Andrew George is its project director and supervised Friday's summit. He said his center was making a difference. But the new program announced Friday will expand that, pairing teens with business owners and police for long-term guidance.

"They can see someone who is already a police officer and learn from that person and be guided by them," George said. "If they want to be a contractor, we will find one or a plumber. We will find an engineer or someone who creates rockets. Whatever that child wants to do, we will find them and put them together."

Busloads of students from Westside, Raines, Ribault, Terry Parker, Ed White, First Coast, Lee and Andrew Jackson high schools heard from Sheriff Mike Williams, Schools Superintendent Diana Greene, Mayor Lenny Curry and JaxChamber President Dan Davis. Almost all wore green Project SOS "I GOT NEXT" T-shirts as they then met with area business leaders, detectives and others to learn about better life skills that could increase their chances of graduating and maybe seek job training.

Organizers admit only some of the young men at the summit will take the presentation to heart or even consider it. But with the numbers of young black males showing up as homicide victims or suspects as well as other crimes, programs that give teens options are needed, Curry said.

"It's tragic what's happening, which is why we are doing stuff like this," the mayor said, adding he had met with Guns Thursday about doing more than just "a one-day thing," but moving to mentoring, jobs, education and college opportunities.

"It's needed now more than ever," added Sheriff's Office Chief of Investigations T.K. Waters, who reminded people that his job includes dealing with every homicide.

"It is very refreshing for me to be able to come out and address these young men and tell them how much we do care and want them to succeed," he said.

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Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549

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