Boys from Eckerd Youth Challenge help bring family a happier holiday

BROOKSVILLE — The Adventurers, a group of boys who live at Eckerd Youth Challenge, and several other groups joined forces to help a family in need have a happier holiday.

Dell Barnes is a computer lab manager at Brooksville Elementary School, a counselor at the Eckerd program (a juvenile justice residential program) and pastor of the Courts of Praise Deliverance Ministry. His various associations helped forge the partnership among the groups that helped the family.

The ministry helped with food donations. "It is wonderful when I ask people within the ministry to submit donations," Barnes said.

The Eckerd program provided presents. The program's supervisor, Tracy Emerson, knowing Barnes worked at the school, requested that he ask Brooksville Elementary officials to identify a family the staff and residents at Eckerd could help.

The family chosen is made up of a single mother with three children who live with the children's grandmother and the mother's brother. The mother is unemployed. They produced a wish list, which included a set of pots and pans, requested by the grandmother.

Every Christmas, Barnes explained, the boys receive $25 from the Eckerd program. They also get a monthly allowance for personal items. All of the boys contributed to the effort out of their allowances, but the Adventurers went further.

"They actually gave a total of $89.50," Barnes said. Combined with the collections from the other groups, the boys contributed $227. The Eckerd program matched that at 50 percent. There were also gifts from staff members.

But the Adventurers wanted to do more, Barnes said.

"They went online and looked for pots and pans and actually selected what they were going to buy for the grandmother. They were really involved," he said.

Karen Bonsignori, the Eckerd Youth Alternative vice president for external relations, said the program encourages its young people to reach out to others.

"Community service is an important part of the Eckerd philosophy," she said. "By teaching youth to give back to the community, it not only increases self- esteem and self-worth, but has a positive effect on the community at the same time."