While most of us meander through life, there is the occasional soul who comes along who has priorities straight and is truly here working to make the world a better place for all.
Malcom Reed is one of those people.
Reed had a youth that a lot of people would not have been able to recover from: a mother with substance abuse issues, homelessness, a criminal record. Most of what he remembers, Reed told The Herald-Sun earlier this week, was that people kept telling him he was going to be nothing.
Reed, with the support of some caring folks whose paths crossed his, did a most remarkable thing. He decided that he was something, never mind what he’d been told. He altered his course, getting away from selling drugs. He got an education. He played college and professional basketball. He traveled the world. He has so richly embraced life, it’s hard to see the shadows on the path he has journeyed along. But they are there. And they have enabled him to have a special connection with others who are uncertain about their self-worth and where they are headed.
Reed, 31, has chosen to work with at-risk youths through his D3 Community Outreach program. And he is the teen career academy coordinator at the Durham Literacy Center.
Both the students who have learned from Reed and Reginald Hodges, the head of the Literacy Center, recognize what a gift Reed is. Students talk about how much Reed has helped them. Hodges talks about what a connection Reed has with the students.
Reed has certainly become something. And what makes Reed so special is not only did he become something, he is making sure he brings along a host of others on that path to finding a sense of self-worth, a stable life and hope for the future. For making this world a better place in a way that is so meaningful and will have such long-lasting effects, this week’s Grit Award winner is Malcom Reed.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Helping the future by remembering his past By: Neil Offen
By Neil Offen
noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646
DURHAM — In room 219, the small classroom at the Emily K Center where he tutors students struggling to get their general equivalency diplomas, Malcom Reed can see himself, can see the person he used to be.
He can see the 14-year-old who came home one day to find his mother at the door with a knife, kicking him out. He can see the teen who lived on the streets, who slept near a trash can and didn’t go to school.
Reed can recall being arrested for armed robbery and stealing a car. He can remember going back to school and selling drugs — “cocaine, weed, whatever I could get my hands on” — and becoming ineligible to play basketball, the game he loved.
Most of all, he can remember “being told, ‘you’re going to be nothing,’ hearing that every single day.”
Now 31, Reed has made himself into someone, a professional basketball player, a world traveler, the coordinator for the teen career academy at the Durham Literacy Center, the force behind D3 Community Outreach, a local nonprofit that offers educational, recreational and leadership activities to local at-risk youth, and, yes, a role model to those students in room 219.
“He helps me all the time,” said Willie Coward, a 20-year-old high school dropout who’s been coming to the center for the past couple of months as he works toward the GED exam.
“He explains stuff perfect. If I have problems, he gives me the information I need. He has the time for you. He takes the time for you. Yeah, I look up to him.”
On a recent Thursday morning, Reed — in red basketball shorts and a red D3 sweatshirt — moved from table to table in the remarkably quiet classroom, leaning over student after student, checking in.
“When I say ‘place value’ to you, what does that mean?” he asks one student whose head is almost buried in a textbook. “Is that 10,000 or is it 100,000? Then after that, it’s a million and then 10 million and it goes on like that forever.”
The student nods.
“The kids have so much respect for him,” said Reginald Hodges, the executive director of the Durham Literacy Center.
“He’s young, almost their age, and they know he’s had similar types of problems. He seems to really connect with them. He gets them to talk and look him in the eye. He gives them support.”
Reed gives them the support, he said, that he received when he most needed it.
When he was living on the streets of a small town near Atlantic City, N.J., he recalled, a man who owned an efficiency motel allowed him to stay on the property if he would do handyman work around the place.
When he was struggling in school, his English teacher, Rita Willis, “kept pushing me, because she knew I could do better.”
When Reed got in trouble with the law, a judge in Cape May gave him a four-year suspended sentence — but only if he stayed in school, got passing grades and graduated.
“I graduated by the skin of my teeth,” Reed recalled, “but I told myself I’d never get in trouble again.”
When he went to Ocean City Community College, he was a star on the basketball team, although still struggling in the classroom. But the assistant coach, Donnie Clyburn, kept telling him that life was more than putting the ball through the basket.
“He was the example I never had,” Reed said. “Things really changed after that.”
After two years of community college, Reed transferred to the Institute of Technology at West Virginia University where he got degrees in business administration, business management and finance, had a 3.2 GPA, and played basketball.
After graduation, he tried out for the Philadelphia 76ers, though he didn't make the team, and had a brief professional stint with the Harlem Globetrotters before playing for teams in France, Italy and Germany.
Seven years ago, Reed was trying out with the Asheville Altitude, an NBA development league squad, when he hurt his knee and came to Duke Hospital for treatment.
His basketball career, he found out, was over, but that was OK — “Basketball did what I wanted it to do,” he said. “It paid for my education. I always tell people I wanted to be able to fall back on my brain.”
Reed stayed in Durham and several years ago launched a basketball program at the John Avery Boys & Girls Club that eventually evolved into D3, which stands for development, desire, determined.
The nonprofit, which operates on a $40,000 budget — mainly from Reed’s pockets — among other activities organizes a basketball league, takes students on tours of colleges, brings in guest speakers and helps students create their own businesses.
Five years ago, Reed also started working with the literacy center’s GED program.
“We were having disciplinary problems,” Hodges recalled. “We had problems with our youths missing classes, with fighting in the classroom, with smoking marijuana and stealing things. There were a lot of gang-related problems.”
Since Reed started, Hodges added, “we haven’t had any disciplinary problems at all.”
Previously, many of the GED students taking the test would never arrive at the test site because they didn’t have transportation. Reed makes sure they now all arrive on time, arranging transportation or driving them himself.
Before Reed, only about 25 percent of the GED students would pass the exam on their first attempt. The rate is now up to 97 percent, Hodges said.
Earlier, the program had “very few students who entered a four-year college. “Now we’ve had about 12,” Hodges said. “and for the first time, we got one of our students into UNC Chapel Hill.”
After he gets his diploma, Willie Coward wants to go first to Durham Tech then to either UNC or East Carolina University.
“I think I can do it,” he said. “Mr. Malcom tells me that I can. And if he could make it, I guess I can, too.”
That opportunity to push someone forward, Reed said, is what continues to drive him.
“I want to give back to kids who are in the same situation I was,” he said. “I want to get them excited about being productive citizens.”
Those kids have become the family, Reed admits, that he never had.
noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646
 |
| Mr. Reed and Rodney |
DURHAM — In room 219, the small classroom at the Emily K Center where he tutors students struggling to get their general equivalency diplomas, Malcom Reed can see himself, can see the person he used to be.
He can see the 14-year-old who came home one day to find his mother at the door with a knife, kicking him out. He can see the teen who lived on the streets, who slept near a trash can and didn’t go to school.
Reed can recall being arrested for armed robbery and stealing a car. He can remember going back to school and selling drugs — “cocaine, weed, whatever I could get my hands on” — and becoming ineligible to play basketball, the game he loved.
Most of all, he can remember “being told, ‘you’re going to be nothing,’ hearing that every single day.”
Now 31, Reed has made himself into someone, a professional basketball player, a world traveler, the coordinator for the teen career academy at the Durham Literacy Center, the force behind D3 Community Outreach, a local nonprofit that offers educational, recreational and leadership activities to local at-risk youth, and, yes, a role model to those students in room 219.
“He helps me all the time,” said Willie Coward, a 20-year-old high school dropout who’s been coming to the center for the past couple of months as he works toward the GED exam.
“He explains stuff perfect. If I have problems, he gives me the information I need. He has the time for you. He takes the time for you. Yeah, I look up to him.”
On a recent Thursday morning, Reed — in red basketball shorts and a red D3 sweatshirt — moved from table to table in the remarkably quiet classroom, leaning over student after student, checking in.
“When I say ‘place value’ to you, what does that mean?” he asks one student whose head is almost buried in a textbook. “Is that 10,000 or is it 100,000? Then after that, it’s a million and then 10 million and it goes on like that forever.”
The student nods.
“The kids have so much respect for him,” said Reginald Hodges, the executive director of the Durham Literacy Center.
“He’s young, almost their age, and they know he’s had similar types of problems. He seems to really connect with them. He gets them to talk and look him in the eye. He gives them support.”
Reed gives them the support, he said, that he received when he most needed it.
When he was living on the streets of a small town near Atlantic City, N.J., he recalled, a man who owned an efficiency motel allowed him to stay on the property if he would do handyman work around the place.
When he was struggling in school, his English teacher, Rita Willis, “kept pushing me, because she knew I could do better.”
When Reed got in trouble with the law, a judge in Cape May gave him a four-year suspended sentence — but only if he stayed in school, got passing grades and graduated.
“I graduated by the skin of my teeth,” Reed recalled, “but I told myself I’d never get in trouble again.”
When he went to Ocean City Community College, he was a star on the basketball team, although still struggling in the classroom. But the assistant coach, Donnie Clyburn, kept telling him that life was more than putting the ball through the basket.
“He was the example I never had,” Reed said. “Things really changed after that.”
After two years of community college, Reed transferred to the Institute of Technology at West Virginia University where he got degrees in business administration, business management and finance, had a 3.2 GPA, and played basketball.
After graduation, he tried out for the Philadelphia 76ers, though he didn't make the team, and had a brief professional stint with the Harlem Globetrotters before playing for teams in France, Italy and Germany.
Seven years ago, Reed was trying out with the Asheville Altitude, an NBA development league squad, when he hurt his knee and came to Duke Hospital for treatment.
His basketball career, he found out, was over, but that was OK — “Basketball did what I wanted it to do,” he said. “It paid for my education. I always tell people I wanted to be able to fall back on my brain.”
Reed stayed in Durham and several years ago launched a basketball program at the John Avery Boys & Girls Club that eventually evolved into D3, which stands for development, desire, determined.
The nonprofit, which operates on a $40,000 budget — mainly from Reed’s pockets — among other activities organizes a basketball league, takes students on tours of colleges, brings in guest speakers and helps students create their own businesses.
Five years ago, Reed also started working with the literacy center’s GED program.
“We were having disciplinary problems,” Hodges recalled. “We had problems with our youths missing classes, with fighting in the classroom, with smoking marijuana and stealing things. There were a lot of gang-related problems.”
Since Reed started, Hodges added, “we haven’t had any disciplinary problems at all.”
Previously, many of the GED students taking the test would never arrive at the test site because they didn’t have transportation. Reed makes sure they now all arrive on time, arranging transportation or driving them himself.
Before Reed, only about 25 percent of the GED students would pass the exam on their first attempt. The rate is now up to 97 percent, Hodges said.
Earlier, the program had “very few students who entered a four-year college. “Now we’ve had about 12,” Hodges said. “and for the first time, we got one of our students into UNC Chapel Hill.”
After he gets his diploma, Willie Coward wants to go first to Durham Tech then to either UNC or East Carolina University.
“I think I can do it,” he said. “Mr. Malcom tells me that I can. And if he could make it, I guess I can, too.”
That opportunity to push someone forward, Reed said, is what continues to drive him.
“I want to give back to kids who are in the same situation I was,” he said. “I want to get them excited about being productive citizens.”
Those kids have become the family, Reed admits, that he never had.
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