Club members must also regularly attend church. In weekly club meetings, Collier leads the kids in Biblically-centered discussions on issues of concern. On two other days each week, volunteer tutors from Christ UM Church come to North Midtown to help the kids with their homework. The ministry has also started a kids' choir. Life in North Midtown is still tough.
Shootings still occur now and then, and welfare dependency remains high.
But something special is obviously afoot. The neighborhood's physical appearance has changed substantially, and not just because of the many nice homes Habitat for Humanity has built. Dorothy Davis says the residents' pride is returning. She's lived in North Midtown for over ten years, and for most of them she was the only person who decorated her house at Christmas, or planted fresh flowers in the spring. Last Christmas, she reports gleefully, so many residents decorated their homes that people from other parts of the city came driving through to admire the lights.