East-side Houma group taking hope to the ‘Extreme’

It’s been four centuries since the first Thanksgiving, and today, people like Tara Detiveaux are still expanding on an idea that has come to include sweet potato pie, pardoning a turkey and watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

“We hosted our first event, a community Thanksgiving dinner, in 2003,” said Detiveaux, executive director of Hope Extreme in Houma. “After that, we decided to do something that was not just a once a year event.”

The idea to help restore and bring about positive changes to Houma’s east side took form when Detiveaux and several friends traveled to El Salvador for a mission trip, and seeing the everyday struggles of the country’s residents made Detiveaux and her colleagues want to change things a bit closer to home as well.

“We wanted to help the people of east Houma the same way we helped the people of El Salvador,” Detiveaux said. “We were young and wanted to make a difference.”

Ten years after Hope Extreme’s first turkey dinner, the organization has expanded far beyond that once a year meal, and the organization now offers an after-school tutoring program, a summer learning program, monthly community outreach programs and weekly church services for urban teens and children. Two full-time employees, six part-time employees, about 40 volunteers, both local youth and adults, and donations from private citizens and churches as well as small grants – and a lot of faith – have made the organization to what it is today.

By reaching out to children, youth, and young adults in the community, Hope Extreme hopes to further spiritual, educational and community development, and the community is reaching back, taking advantage of services as well as providing volunteers.

At 10 years, the organization’s three-day-a-week after-school tutoring program is the longest running service, and 60 children take part in the learning sessions.

“The after-school tutoring program is really helping,” Detiveaux said. “We work with them on comprehension and phonics, and teach them things that will hopefully stay with them for life. We also get about 60 children in our summer learning program, which is going into its fourth year, and during that program, we teach art and character building classes.”

According to Detiveaux, Hope Extreme’s Thursday teen services as well as House of Hope, a monthly program that provides a free meal to those in need, both draw about 60 to 80 participants per event.

“The teens walk here or we bus them here,” she said. “It’s a high-energy service with a worship band and speakers from groups like Tarpons for Christ and Patriots for Christ. These services help make them aware that the decisions they make guide their direction in the future, and it’s a great opportunity to help them along.”

Those who are part of the organization give back to the community and the program by helping to restore local homes, visiting the elderly and cutting their grass and making gifts for teachers at eastside schools.

While Detiveaux is the only El Salvador trip member still associated with the organization, she continues to see all the good that sprang from their youthful idea.

“Our original goal was to bring about radical change to the lives of people on Houma’s east side,” she said. “We wanted people to know that they can change their environment. God is able to change your life, and you can do the greatest things.”

“We are helping to turn children around,” Detiveaux continued. “Children are learning to read and passing their classes. There are good influences here. We had a student with an extreme behavior problem, and, after about three weeks in our tutoring program, he was doing much better in the classroom setting. Everything here is continuing to grow, and we would have more children in tutoring the program if we had the space.”

Since space inside is limited, Detiveaux has even come up with an idea to expand the organization’s community efforts outside the building.

“We hope to expand our programs this summer when we open Hope Gardens on the center’s property,” Detiveaux said. “We will build a sustainable garden for the kids to help with, and this will help the children learn about character building, life skills and healthy living.”

A day of community outreach

On a recent Saturday, 25 volunteers gathered at the center to complete one of the organization’s monthly community outreach projects, and the day’s agenda including painting a house on West Street, handing out clothes and shoes, distributing lunch through Hope Serves and preparing teacher appreciation gifts for teachers from Acadian and East Houma Elementary.

“Hope Extreme makes people feel like they always have a place where they can come to, a place where they can talk about their problems and give it all to God,” said volunteer Kayla Johnson, who was helping to prepare teacher appreciation gifts. “Sometimes you feel like there is no one to depend on, but God is there even when no one else is. I always have someone here pushing me and telling me that I can go above and beyond.”

Johnson, 16, is a sophomore at Ellender Memorial High School, and she has been participating in all of Hope Extreme’s programs for five years, ever since her two older sisters introduced her to the organization.

“It’s good to give to such a great cause,” she said. “I enjoy participating in the Thursday youth services most because I get to sing on stage and be more involved. It helps me.”

Fellow youth volunteer Zaronte Coleman, an eighth grader at Oak Lawn Junior High, also likes the Thursday night youth services, and he has been trying to recruit friends and neighbors to take part in the celebration.

“Friends ask me where I have been on Thursday nights when I get back from youth services, and I tell them I was being productive, not hanging out in the streets,” said Coleman as he and Odarion Robertson, a senior at South Terrebonne High School painted window frames on a house on West Street. “I like singing and playing the drums at the service, and I hope I can get more of my friends to come here. I enjoy it here, and it really helps me. I like helping the community out.”

Coleman, 13, has been visiting Hope Extreme for the last three months, ever since Detiveaux spoke at his school for a Tarpons for Christ event, and the outreach from the organization has already had a positive effect on the young man’s life.

“I used to disobey my mom and get bad grades in school, but I prayed with Ted (Detiveaux) and Tara,” he said. “They helped me through it. I want to thank them for what they do. They are doing a great job. I hope to be a leader in the community when I get older, and coming to Hope Extreme has put me on the path for that.”

In addition to the leadership of the Detiveauxs, adult volunteers like Rachel Dyers and Danielle LaFont also help keep youth volunteers like Coleman, Robertson and Johnson inspired and encouraged in their lives.

“This organization gives us a really good chance to impart knowledge to the youth while they are still moldable,” Dyers said. “We have a good opportunity to change the course of their lives because some of the kids who come here have difficulties in their lives. Changing lives is our whole mission.”

Dyers has been volunteering at Hope Extreme for several years, and she recalled the organization’s first steps at getting involved on the streets of east Houma.

“We conducted a survey at local churches, and we asked members of the congregation what kinds of changes they wanted to see in the community,” she said. “They wanted to see an organization that took an interest in the community and stayed interested in the community. This Easter, we hosted egg hunts at six spots in the community, and the adults were impressed that the organization was out there and staying involved.”

“Being a volunteer for Hope Extreme is really good for my soul,” Dyers said as she prepared to leave with several other volunteers who would be handing out clothes and shoes in the community. “I really wanted to be involved in a ministry in the community and work with the youth of the community, and I like all of the programs equally because they are all so different. It’s great to see a change for Jesus.”

Adult volunteer Danielle LaFont also participates in all of the organization’s events, but working with the teens is her favorite part of the experience.

“I was really looking for a way for God to use me, and a friend invited me to a concert here one night,” she said. “I rode on a bus with teens on the way here, and I just fell in love with them. They are a great group of kids.”

In the two and a half years LaFont has been volunteering with Hope Extreme, she has seen how the organization gives local youth a purpose in their everyday lives and how that has caused a positive change in their perspectives.

“They are behaving and doing better in school, and they work harder to meet their goals because they have cheerleaders here at Hope Extreme,” she said. “We let they know that they can do it, and they really believe it, that they can graduate high school and go on to college or get technical training.”

“They also get opportunity to serve in their community through Hope Extreme, and they feel more pride in where they come from and who they are,” LaFont continued. “Having that sense of ownership is important in life, and it teaches them to do and be better and take care of what they have.”

This summer, LaFont will add to her list of community efforts when she uses her art and graphic design experience to lead the center’s art program, and jazzing up the building’s decor is first on her list of projects.

“This will be my first time to lead the art program, and I am very excited,” she said. “We will be creating sustainable art, not just coloring inside the lines, and the art projects will give the kids a chance to show their community pride on the center’s walls.”

“The Bible teaches us to be disciples and to serve the Lord,” Lafont said. “Hope Extreme does thay by sharing wisdom, guidance and love and teaching kids that need it.”

Hope Extreme youth volunteers Zaronte Coleman, left, an eighth grader at Oak Lawn Junior High, and Odarion Robertson, a senior at South Terrebonne High School, paint a house on West Street in Houma. Both of the boys are youth volunteers at Hope Extreme.