The Trenton clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County provides a needed alternative to the streets for the city's youth.
Ean Polke is now 34 and he can look back on his life and see things that weren't apparent to him when he was growing up in the projects in Trenton.
Twelve years ago, he was on trial for fatally shooting a Trenton teen two years earlier. After taking a plea deal for manslaughter and serving half a decade in prison, Polke has realized a profound insight into the human condition.
"We aren't born with the urge to be violent," he said, reflecting on his past after graduating in May from Rutgers University. "We adapt to our environment."
In Trenton, that environment can be good or bad.
For Poke, the circumstances of his youth were far from ideal.
He grew up in the Oakland Street and Hoffman Avenue projects, where he said he was targeted for street fights at an early age. After high school, he started carrying a gun for protection after being "jumped" three times, once with a gun pointed at him.
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Perhaps it was only a matter of time before he found himself in a situation where he would use that gun. On June 18, 2002, he shot a 17-year-old kid who also was armed. Polke said he acted in self-defense.
The mean streets of Trenton also claimed the life of 15-year-old Maurice Wimbush-Jalaah, who was gunned down June 11 in the Prospect Village neighborhood.
Called "Mar Mar" by his family and friends, Wimbush-Jalaah had just returned to the city after living with relatives in Texas, where he could grow up and go to school in a safer environment.
Kids growing up in Trenton now do not expect to live, activist Darren "Freedom" Green said at a vigil for Wimbush-Jalaah. "Their expectation is death."
He implored the young mourners not to resort to violence.
"We need responsible behavior," Green told the gathering. "We're at the grassroots level. We need to go into our homes, our communities and deal with it."
That's sound advice. And that leads us to one of the good experiences the city has to offer: the newly refurbished Trenton clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County.
After a $250,000 facelift, the clubhouse now can offer a wide range of positive experiences for the city's youth.
"A kid can go to school and come here and when they get home, all they have to do is shower and go to bed," Reggie Coleman, executive director of the Trenton programs, told The Times at a grand re-opening ceremony, ironically on the same day Wimbush-Jalaah was being eulogized less than a mile away.
Boys & Girls Club's $250K facelift
If indeed we are the product of our environment, as Polke succinctly observed, than wouldn't it be better to have a nurturing one?
Ideally, children should experience that nurturing environment at home, which, sadly, is often not the case. But beyond the confines of the home, there is an urban world fraught with dangers.
That's why it is so important to have safe zones such as the Boys and Girls Club where kids can have a positive experience.
The city's youth deserve an alternative to a future of violence and early death. Pointing a kid in the right direction at an early age can have a big and lasting impact.
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