Reggie Singleton of The Males Place speaks at Rotary
By Steve Baker
On Wednesday, November 10, 2021, the Denver Lake Norman Rotary welcomed back Reggie Singleton as its speaker. Reggie, who spoke to the club last year, is the Founder/Executive Director of The Males Place, Inc.
The Males Place, Inc., was founded in 1993 as a nonprofit organization. The project has grown over the years, mentoring over 3,000 youths, making it one of the largest mentoring organizations in North Carolina. Since The Males Place was founded, the group has traveled to Sankofa, Ghana and Cuba. Due to travel restrictions resulting from the Covid Virus, a December trip to Egypt was cancelled and hopefully can be rescheduled for the Spring or Summer of 2022.
The mission of The Males Place is to "provide comprehensive and prevention-based behavior health educational programming, mentoring and life skills training for manhood development for African American boys ages 12-28; while creating a safe environment for young men to grow experientially in community settings in the United States and abroad". Reggie feels that providing guidelines and mentoring at an early age really does work.
There are ten volunteers who serve as Elders for the organization. The Elders each have responsibility for a group of youths. There are weekly check-ins and meetings. The groups have the opportunity, under the direction of the Elders, to participate in the planning of projects, applying critical thinking skills and watching their ideas develop over time with the programs.
One of the projects Reggie spoke to our Rotary Club about was the “Fresh Vegetable Garden.” The boys spend time in planning and designing a community garden. Their goal is to be able to provide to Charlotte’s westside free, fresh vegetables to the improvised local neighborhoods. They grow their products free of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers.
Each year The Males Place has a fundraising event selling boxes of fresh Florida fruit for the holidays. The Denver Lake Norman Rotary Club was able to participate in the 2021 event thanks gto Rich Lyon who distributed order forms to our members. These purchases will be delivered to our Rotarians at a future club meeting.
The club appreciates the programs that Reggie Singleton has founded, and it hopes his dreams and wishes will continue to flourish. Some of the club's own members spend time working with the youth in the local area either reading to students at the elementary schools or helping with Boy and Girl Scout programs. Rotary thanks all its members who participate in providing help, guidance, and volunteer work with the youths in the Denver/Lake Norman community.
To find out more about The Males Place, please go the www.themalesplace.com. Click on the Journeys, Focus, Media, and Events tabs for additional information.