Diane Latiker - Kids Off the Block
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- Book:Kids Off the Block
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- Publisher:Baker Publishing Group
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- Year:2020
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2020 by Diane Latiker
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2791-8
Some names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Published in association with Ambassador Literary Agency, Nashville, TN.
This book is dedicated to all the young people who believe they are alone, that no one cares, and that society has disregarded them. I believe in you, love you, and will always be here if you need me. You are everything!
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction: How Did I Get Here?
1. You Should Do Something with Those Kids
2. Cant These Kids Be Kids?
3. Are You Miss Diane?
4. Resistance from Every Side
5. Midlife Career Change
6. Around the Clock
7. Save a Teen
8. Its Your Vision
9. Headstones
10. When the Lord Takes You Down a Peg
11. Hope and Change
12. Not on My Block
13. Turn Around
14. No Peace
16. The Floodgates Open
17. Battlefield Outside My Door
18. Were Worth It
19. Fierce Over 40
20. Look What God Did
Acknowledgments
Back Ads
Back Cover
Diane Latiker is saving lives
Not just of future babies, husbands, and wives
But of children drowning now
In the downpouring rain
Of poverty, hopelessness,
Killings,
Abandonment, pain
Of shootings,
The absence of hugs,
Drugs,
Gangstering thugs
Mothers on meth death
Crack cocaine brains
Fathers on streets
Shouting blame games
Some have even forgotten their names
Some killed by police
Jailed, not released
Children lost and broken, cuffed tight
To the chair of dont nobody care about me
Despair
So, why should I care?
Why should I care?
Why should I care?
Diane Latikers saving lives
Because she does care
And dares to risk all she holds dear
Never embracing
The dark cloud of fear
Not that she sometimes
Doesnt move past her tears
Not that she sometimes
Doesnt fall to her knees
And pray to God, please, please, please,
Show me the way
To get through another day
But she gets up
And spits in the face of despair
Cleans herself up
Fixes her hair
And opens her heart
To another young face
Looking for salvation
A safe hiding place
And she hugs them
Scolds them
Holds them and molds them
Till she sees them in peace
Then she opens her arms
Gives them release
Then guides them to look past their pains
Teaches them how to use their talents, their brains
To reach back to others
Teaches them what nobody really wants to hear
About the enemy within
Their fears, their fears, their fears
But Diane teaches to get in fears face
Tell fear his butt is evicted
Get his butt up, out of your place
Pick up his doodoo,
Cause you now need your sacred inner space
She teaches healing
To give yourself another chance
Stop choking on your vomit
Take off your chains of self-doubt
Take your stance, start your dance
Fear and self-doubt get out, get out!
Diane doesnt preach fantasy
She lives the price that has to be paid
She has piles of gravestones for those no longer here
And their voices scream at us from those stony bricks
They scream stop, stop, stop!
Stop falling for the tricks
Stop hating each other
And all that looks like you
Stop being the apple and not the tree
We know lifes beating you to your hopeless knees
But if you dont stand up and see past your pains
Youll end up like us
Fear and anger
Turned into brick-like pus
We hope folks will hear
What Diane has to say
Its not about living just another day
Its not about just becoming another stone
But creating a future that you really own
Building your dreams out of what you learn and know
Get up, never stop, go, go, go
Dianes book
Is an inside look
At all shes had to live
Of all the challenges shes had to face
Diane is a hero to me
An example of all we could be
Shes a gift that keeps giving
All she can give
Teaching by example
The life you can live
Because Diane Latiker is saving lives
Not just of future babies, husbands, and wives
But of children drowning now
In the downpouring rain
Of poverty, hopelessness,
Killings,
Abandonment, pain.
Bill Duke, actor, director, and producer
How Did I Get Here?
Hey, Miss Diane, can we play?
My eyes darted around the Curtis Elementary School gym, looking for the kid who called over the rubber thud of basketballs and squeaking shoes. There was Lamont, standing in the doorway with two of his boys. Whats he doing here? I wondered.
Hold on a minute, Ill be right back, I told the volunteer helping me wrangle the crowd. I walked past seventy-five kids running layup drills in their Kids Off the Block T-shirts and over to Lamont. Whats going on? I asked him.
He held up his Jordans and nodded toward the court. We wanna play.
I studied his face. I had known that boy for years, and not once had he shown up to the basketball program. He wouldnt even come to Kids Off the Block, the after-school program that I ran out of my home. I talked him into coming to the bowling alley with us once, but he never would set foot in my house.
Miss Diane, I aint sitting next to those so-and-sos , he told me thenonly he didnt say so-and-so s . Too many rival gang members there, apparently.
I had no idea why he showed up that afternoon ready to shoot hoops. But I also knew I never turned anyone away who wanted to play.
Cool, come on in. I pointed to the lines by each basketball hoop. Go ahead, we just running drills now.
Lamont and his boys walked across the gym, their backpacks slung over their hoodies. I figured theyd change into their gym shoes and jump in with the other kids, so I turned my attention back to the program.
Miss Diane, watch! a boy hollered as he flung a basketball at the hoop.
I grinned and clapped, watching the ball sail toward the backboard and bounce into the net. Nice shot! I cheered. Three days a week, the gym a block from my house was filled with kids just dying to dribble and shoot. Basketball had a way of bringing boys together, no matter what block they came from or what gang they pledged their allegiance to.
Not fifteen minutes later, the door swung open and in walked TO.
Oh, Lord , I thought.
TO wasnt supposed to be there that day. Most days he showed up ready to play, but he had told me he couldnt come this time for one reason or another. And most days, I would have been thrilled to see him. But most days, Lamont wasnt there.
Everybody was scared of TO. The kids told me he still ran around with his gang, much as I fussed at him to quit. I couldnt go a day without somebody telling me about kids from TOs and Lamonts gangs shooting each other up. And now, members of both gangs were in the gym with seventy-five other kids.
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