Spring 2007 -- Vol. 60, No. 2

by Kerry Coffee

Have you ever heard the story of the starfish on the shore? A man goes down to the beach where there are thousands of starfish along the shoreline. Someone is picking up starfish and putting them back in the ocean. The man approaches this person and asks, “How can you possibly make a difference in getting all of these starfish back into the ocean?” The person picks up another starfish, puts it back in the ocean and says, “I made a difference for that one.”

Suzanne Ross, a mentor in the Building Dreams program, says that the child she works with is like that starfish — she can’t help thousands of children, but she can help this one.

Building Dreams is a Clemson public service activities program (PSA). It provides mentoring for children who have an incarcerated parent in South Carolina. Funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Building Dreams seeks to develop close, supportive relationships between volunteer mentors and children of prison inmates.

Begun in 2004, the outreach program is a collaboration of Clemson PSA’s Institute on Family and Neighbor-hood Life (IFNL), Angel Tree ministries and community partners in eight S.C. counties: Anderson, Clarendon, Darlington, Greenville, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg and Sumter.

Nationwide, prisons hold a million more people than they did a generation ago. In South Carolina, the number of prisoners increased 619 percent from 1973 to 2004. According to the S.C. Department of Corrections, the state currently has approximately 24,000 incarcerated adults.

Robin Kimbrough-Melton of IFNL, lead coordinator in the Building Dreams program and director of the National Center on Rural Justice and Crime Prevention, notes, “Children [of offenders] are the unfortunate victims of criminal behavior, and many are left without the guidance and supervision they need to become successful. The Building Dreams program is designed to provide consistency and compassion for these children and youth during a particularly difficult time in their lives.”

Doug Adomatis, mentor and local site coordinator at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Simpsonville, says, “What has blown me away about the participants in our area is that these kids are not asking for big things or for money; they are asking for love. One day as I was driving with the child I mentor, I asked him what he wanted out of our relationship. He said, ‘I want you to help me be a better person. I want help with my homework, and I want to see things I have never seen before.’”

Mentors and their Building Dreams children spend at least four hours a month together, with weekly contact. They share activities such as bowling, hiking, volunteering, going to movies, having dinner or playing sports. Adomatis explains, “Our mentors and mentees don’t do spectacular things that require a lot of money; in fact, they do lots of free things like visiting art museums or taking a walk downtown or in the park.”

IFNL’s strong communities

The Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life is a Clemson public service program helping generate, share and apply the research foundation for youth, family and community development. In addition, it develops and evaluates programs and provides technical assistance and community education. For more of its programs, go online at www.clemson.edu/ifnl or call (864) 656-6271.

In other words, they gain the experience of being with positive members of society and begin laying the foundation for their own sense of community.

Of course, mentoring children who live in difficult situations requires patience and perseverance. “You can’t fix it all, but you can love them,” says Ross. “It warms my heart to pick up my Building Dreams child and get her involved in our church basketball league, and it breaks my heart to drop her off into uncertainty. But she knows I love her and that I will be there for her.”

Locating children of inmates can sometimes be difficult because of the stigma attached to incarceration but well worth the effort. Referrals come from the Department of Social Services, schools, community groups and churches. Research associates also visit the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution for women each month. They ask inmates if they would like their children in the Building Dreams program. They find that, despite the mistakes of the offenders, many want the best for their children and therefore want them enrolled.

In only its third year, Building Dreams has already made a difference in the lives of 200 children — “one starfish at a time.” But staff members are constantly looking for ways to expand the program and reach more children. Each year, nearly 12,000 children in South Carolina have a parent incarcerated or on probation or parole.

To be a part of Building Dreams, you can sponsor or participate in activities, make monetary donations, sponsor children to go to camp, provide tickets to sports and other events, or sign up to be a mentor.

For more information, go online at www.clemson.edu/ifnl and click on “Building Dreams” or contact Jill McLeigh at (864) 238-0187 or mcleigh@clemson.edu.