‘The Support Group’ Looks For Community Support

The Support Group Founders Tim Hardaway, Sr., and Bennie Henry. Photo provided by With An Eye PR.
The Support Group Founders Tim Hardaway, Sr., and Bennie Henry. Photo provided by With An Eye PR.

‘The Support Group’ Looks For Community Support

By Tia Carol Jones

For 36 years The Support Group has been creating opportunities for children and young people, ages 12 years old to 24 years old, through educational programs, team building activities, character building and athletic conditioning.

The mission comes from the founder Bennie Henry and his own life’s journey and leaning on the support of the village. Throughout the years, The Support Group has served about 150,000 young people. It focuses on three pillars: enrichment, sports and wellness.

There is the Youth Peace Ambassador Program, which teaches young people conflict resolution strategies and restorative justice practices. The goal is for young people to have positive peer-to-peer interactions and effectively cope with trauma. The Advancing Young Leaders Program is geared toward high school seniors and aims to expose the young people to careers by bringing in industry leaders for them to engage with. The young people learn networking skills and professional presence. They also engage in civic activities and take college tours.

The Support Group is looking to expand its reach and include younger children because it sees the need for early investment and intervention. To do this, the organization has launched two campaigns to raise funds. With the It Takes A Village campaign, the Support Group is asking community members to donate so it can maintain its programs. The goal is to raise $500,000. The other campaign is asking 1,000 businesses to pledge $1000 each so it can have an even greater impact. The overall goal is $1.5 million.

Henry said that it is imperative for the community to get involved in supporting programs like the Support Group that aim to help young people. He said that while there has been coverage of young people behaving badly, those young people do not represent all of the young people in the city. He said he has spoken to young people who have expressed that they do not want to engage in negative activities, they want to be part of the solution and not the problem. He said with the right kind of money and funding for the right kind of programs, it can make a big difference.

“In order for it to change, we have to do something to where kids have programs that they can go to,” he said.

Henry said that his philosophy when it comes to young people engaging with one another in peer-to-peer conversations is that they will listen to and talk to each other. He said that to maintain the funding to keep his program going, it will make a big impact on the young people in Chicago. He said something different has to be done in order to make a real change.

Henry said he has had children whose children are now in his program. He said that he hopes businesses will see The Support Group’s longevity and its impact and will want to give back to the community by giving to the organization.

For more information about The Support Group, visit thesupportgroup.org.


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