Issac Bailey | Let your talents save a kid

He was about to make a poor decision.

Then he remembered my constant reminder to him and the dozen or so other teenage boys in our group that we all have a simple choice in every situation: Make a good decision or a bad one.

"I said, 'This is just what Mr. Bailey was talking about,'" he told me.

And in the heat of that moment, he made the right choice.

The choices confronting these young men go from the-should-be-simple - paying attention in class - to the distressingly difficult, such as avoiding fights, drugs and guns in environments that encourage such activities instead of frowning upon them. Many of them struggle through less-than-ideal home lives.

We begin each 90-minute session the same way every week, with each person listing the good and bad choices they made the previous week. We discuss other things as well, about thinking through potential long-term consequences and the need to respect themselves and others.

Our primary focus since a teacher invited me to speak with them, though, has been about thinking through daily choices. The more we talk, the more I've been struck by just how little time they have spent doing such thinking.

Some of it can be chalked up to teenage blindness. But not all of it can be dismissed easily, especially when some in the group face gun charges for a third time, are arrested after attacking a girlfriend or feel like giving up on life - at the age of 17 - "because I've already messed up too much."

I don't dismiss it because too many of them sound like my younger brothers did years ago, before they worked themselves into extended prison stays.

I speak to them frankly about where my brothers' daily choices led them, explain that they, too, started off making bad decisions about seemingly inconsequential things before their lives spiraled out of their control.

I don't know if I'm getting through. But I know for the sake of their lives - and ours - we can't stop trying, which is why I plan to attend the 98.5 KISS FM/Michael Baisden One Million Mentors Town Hall Meeting to Save Our Kids at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

Dozens of area organizations that need funds and volunteers to reach out to today's youth will be on hand. Maybe your personality and talents are more suited to helping elementary-age kids read and volunteering for Freedom Readers will work best. (I'll be signing my book and donating a portion of the proceeds.) Or maybe your schedule fits better with the Boys & Girls Club, Early College or groups combating teen pregnancy.

No matter the group, they all can use more support. More of us can begin providing some of it Saturday. I hope to see you there.