Greenville, SC – Project Alpha
2004 was held at Shady Oak Baptist Church on October 2. This
year event was the largest seminar to date with 135 young men
and more 60 Brothers, parents, and other volunteers. Project
Alpha was sponsored by Gamma Gamma Lambda Chapter along with
the Upstate Chapters from Spartanburg and Clemson University.
“This is a tremendous response from the community,” said
Bro. Ron Barton, Pastor of Shady Oak, “it shows how much
this program is needed.” Project Alpha is a national partnership
with the March of Dimes and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The program’s
goal is to inform young men about being sexual responsible and
give them “real-world” examples of how to make good
choices in their lives.
Seminar topics such as included "Keeping It Real: Male
Roles and Responsibilities in Relationships", "Seeing
between the Lines: Is it Possible to have a Healthy Relationship
with my Father?”, and "The Consequences of Pimpin’:
The Dangers of Unplanned and Unprotected Sex, "Law and Order:
Knowing the Limit when it Come to Male/Female Relationships".
Many of the speakers gave frank discussions about the real consequences
of bad choices and dispelled many myths about sexual relationships. “You
would be surprised by the amount of misinformation some of these
young men had about their bodies”, say Bro. Will Gregg,
one the speakers for the event.
This year the event added two seminars for parents: “The
Challenges of Rearing a Son in a One Parent Home”, and "Breaking
the Silence: Talking to my Child about Sex”. “We
wanted to engage parents so we added the seminars to this year’s
event. We this will help to continue the discussion between parent
and son after the program has ended”, says Bro. Don Weston,
Program Chairman.
Value assistance was given to the seminar from the membership
of Shady Oak Baptist Church, Ford Motor Credit, Upstate Urban
League, Jack-in-the-box, and WJMZ 107.3. Since 1998 the Upstate
Project Alpha has reached more 450 young men. |
Brothers
and Participants after the seminar.
More
190 people attended the event.
Brothers work at the Registration a table. All Participants
received T-shirts and certificates for attending the seminar.
Bro. Weston leads the Opening session.135 young men attended
the seminar, making it the largest seminar to date.
After lunch, several of the young men played games including
basketball, horseshoes, and table tennis. |