Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Hero of West Side keeps the gang life away

By Patrick Lawler and Joe Sarro
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.