Building Community Bridges is a group that focuses on supporting area youth — and their families — by providing community and giving them the chance to discover new passions and learn new skills, such as boxing, chess, modeling, dance and more.
Douglas Wright III is the founder of the organization and spoke about how support and encouragement can impact youth.
For the month of December, we’re focusing on the health of those living in Jefferson City.
Douglas Wright III: The reason why Building Community Bridges exist is because I don't want no one else to go through what I went through by themselves.
The mission statement of Building Community Bridges is to inspire, uplift and aid youth development through self-awareness programs, education and addressing community issues that impact their daily lives.
Did you see that — self-awareness programs.
See, when a child knows who they are and identify what it is that they want to do — how much faster do you think they're gonna get there? Because they're sponges, and if you’re putting the right thing in there — Oh man. Whew.
If a person wants to do academics, I get you. I get behind you. I got connects over there at Lincoln University. I know who to plug you into, you know I'm saying?
But if you want to go on this entrepreneur role, let's view these options, you know, you got Linn Tech over there, you got Nichols Career Center, you got these construction companies — so, let's view that.
But I want to know what it is that you want to do, not with your parent or your husband or your wife — what is it that you, because I learned that if you're putting energy in something that you're not passionate about — is it a waste of time or not?
How you feel going to… a job that you don't want to be at every day, but you got to pay the bills. Do you know what that's doing to your mental health? Honestly?
You see what I'm saying? So, when you going to deal with trauma — see, that's the most important thing to me is getting a person, if you come from an at risk home, a dysfunctional home, single parent, or any of those things that happens down here on this level where we at — we got to address that if you want to be built for success.
Every community needs a Building cCmmunity Bridges, and then the programming comes from what that community want.
They might not want modeling and fashion, dance. They might want pickleball or — it's no telling. It's no telling what that community want, but that's where the program come from.
Regardless of who you is, where you come from, what you went through. It’s your story, and you could turn your life around. You can turn your life around and be everything it is that you see in your head through all the darkness. So, there is hope. You can become a beacon of light for the next person.
