Minister: We need mentors

In the three years since Big Brothers Big Sisters of Saginaw Bay Area launched a special mentoring project, 36 people have volunteered.

That's not good enough, said W. Wilson Goode Sr., 68, former mayor of Philadelphia and now a Baptist minister, who founded the mentoring project Amachi (pronounced ah-ma-chee) six years ago. Its aim: Provide adult support to children who have a parent in prison.

Goode spoke Friday at a prayer breakfast hosted by Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Saginaw. About 60 people attended.

"I'm here on behalf of children, 7.3 million of them, who have one or both parents in jail. They are society's most at-risk children," Goode said. "Without our help, 70 percent of them will end up in jail, too.

"Until six years ago, when we started this program, these children were invisible. Various religious groups had prison ministries, but no one was speaking on behalf of these children. They were an invisible population. They can't represent themselves."

In his third visit to Saginaw since Amachi brokered a partnership between Big Brothers Big Sisters and mid-Michigan churches, Goode stressed the need for many more than the 40,000 mentors throughout the country who participate in Amachi. He requested a commitment of one hour, once a week for a year.

"You haven't gotten the message," he said. "They really need someone in their lives."

When he was 12, his father went to prison for assaulting his mother.

"A local church intervened and changed my life," he said.

Goode was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1995. He organized Amachi -- West African for "Who knows but what God has brought us through this child" -- in 2000 as a partnership of 43 congregations and community groups. The effort targets inmates' sons and daughters.

"My role was to connect the longtime mentoring tradition of Big Brothers Big Sisters with local congregations to provide volunteers."

Big Brothers Big Sisters gave certificates of participation to 11 churches involved in mentor recruitment in Saginaw and Bay City. They are Ames United Methodist, Christ Fellowship Baptist, First United Methodist, Gethsemane Baptist, Mount Moriah Baptist, Mount Nebo Baptist, Mount Olive Baptist, New Beginnings Church Of God In Christ, New Mount Calvary Baptist, Shiloh Baptist and Victorious Believers Ministries Church Of God In Christ. v