Bengal News West Reporters
Walking
in with a flat brim cap, sunglasses and a heavy gold chain hanging from his
neck, Darrell Barber doesn’t seem like your normal youth director.
Gangs, guns, fights and robberies were an
everyday occurrence when Barber was growing up. Now being a youth director at
The West Side Community Services, Barber doesn’t want today’s kids living the
same life.
Barber
has had a great amount of experience that involves criminal life crowds. It was
different sections of the town that had the conflicts growing up. It was a
known fact that groups of other projects could not come together with one
another. Barber compared gang life to the survival of the fittest.
“I
grew up in the projects,” Barber said.
West
Side children tend to get a smile from ear to ear when they know they get to
see Barber every day after school. Even though he is strict on them, Barber
plays a significant role between youth director and a fatherly figure.
Barber
is the youth director at West Side Community Services. He has worked there for
over 15 years now. Starting out as a youth aid, he’s always been able to have
that passion to work with kids. Having two kids of his own, Barber said he has
been known as a great inspiration to the young ones he works with.
“Some
of these kids don’t really have enough people in their life to motivate them to
do the right things and not the wrong things,” Barber said.
Buffalo
has been known as one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. According to
Forbes, Buffalo was ranked as the 10th most dangerous city in the
nation. According to
city-data.com, Buffalo has had over 4,000 burglaries and over 1,000 auto thefts
in 2011. Buffalo had over 3,200 thefts per a 100,000 population while the U.S.
average was 2,000 thefts per a 100,000 population.
Barber
understands the life some of the kids are threatened by. Barber’s main goal is
to show them other alternatives to not lead them in the direction that he
experienced. Showing the kids that he cares and being there for them is what he
feels he was brought there for. A lot of the children are being raised in
single parent homes, broken homes or being raised by their grandparents.
“These
kids who don’t get the attention they deserve tend to go into that gang life to
find that family atmosphere they are looking for,” said Barber. “They aren’t
looking at the consequences of what they are doing till after the fact.”
Barber
has had an affect on these kids' lives
even further past the community center. He’s been to grammar school
graduations, high school graduations and even college graduations. He’s
realized that some of these kids need that male figure in their life to always
be there for them.
Margaret
Sanabria is a case manager at the West Side Community Services. She has known
Barber for 16 years. Sanabria said Darrell is the glue
that keeps the community center together. She said that Barber is always on
top. Their grades need to be good other wise they will get a talk from “Mr.D.”
“They
see him, they see what he is doing and a lot of them do consider him as being
their father,” Sanabria said.
“He
gives off that tough exterior, but inside he is really a teddy bear,” said
Amelia Hernandez, who is now the youth aid at the center. “He is very caring,
not a quitter and definitely competitive and wise.”
According
to Hernandez, Barber makes the center a fun and safe atmosphere. He shows the
disciplinary but not to the point where the kids ever feel like they cant come
and talk to him.
“A
lot of them call me ‘dad’ and I accept it,” Barber said.
