The cobblestone streets and historic mansions of Old Town Alexandria are just across the Potomac River, but they were more like another world for a teenager growing up in Southeast Washington.
As Darel Bellamy took a break recently from his job as a paid intern building boats at the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, the 18-year-old smiled solemnly and remembered his former life.
“It got to the point where gunshots were like doorbells to me,” he said. “You just looked out the window to see who was next. I had friends who got killed and friends who did the killing. And I could have been next.”
Mr. Bellamy has come a long way since his family fled the city for the Virginia suburbs.
Perhaps the only person who can appreciate that as much as Mr. Bellamy, a recent high school graduate, is somebody who used to put young men behind bars.
“I didn’t want to develop a preconceived notion with anyone I was working with,” said Fred Geiger, a 3½-year foundation volunteer. “I came into the program with the idea everyone would start off from Jump Street, and see how things worked out. In the beginning, I was actually learning as well.”
Before becoming a foundation volunteer, Mr. Geiger, who is now retired, was a Drug Enforcement Administration officer, an intelligence officer, a U.S. attache in Germany and New York City police officer.
He said he has seen the worst of the streets and now wants to help young men from turning to a life of crime.
Mr. Geiger, 60, worried at first about whether the students would welcome him and if everybody’s history would be accepted. Now he says “there was absolutely no trouble at all.”
Apprentice program
The foundation started in 1982 as a club for boat enthusiasts, including some of the area’s most wealthy residents.
The boat-building program started in 1992 with the goal of helping disadvantaged young men and women develop discipline, self-confidence and other skills to help them get jobs, in addition to teaching them how to build boats.
By the spring of 1997, the foundation had already built several row boats and was building a rowing skiff in a local high school.
“We wanted to reach out to young people who were at risk educationally and behaviorally and offer them a way to improve,” said Kent Barnekov, the foundation’s new executive director and former board of directors member. “We started to see that many of [the students] had never been taught responsibility, so they did not have a clear perspective of what would be required of them in the workforce.
“We had the idea that if we could teach them such things as responsibility, work ethics and integrity, we could keep them off the streets, and that was the inspiration for the program.”
The foundation started a paid, work-based apprentice program in the region that focused on disadvantaged youths, usually 17 to 21 years old.
The applicants, who are mostly from Northern Virginia, must complete an application process that includes interviews, drug testing and a trial work period so they know what to expect.
The current apprentice class is building a 3,000-pound Potomac River Dory boat that will be called “The William Henry” after the famous naval ship engineer Bill Hunley.
The hull is designed to withstand the roughest and deepest water on a Chesapeake Bay watershed and also float comfortably in just a few feet of water.
“For many of them it is their first job, and they are here because their parole officers have told them it is the end of the line,” Mr. Barnekov said of the apprentices in the program. “Some of them wash out when they realize how challenging the program can be, but it is actually our retreads who do the best — those who have quit and realized what a good alternative we are to going back out on the streets.”
’Volunteers keep me going’
Mr. Geiger sought out the foundation when he grew passionate about boat building. Mr. Bellamy learned about the apprenticeship through a guidance counselor at T.C. Williams High School.
As an apprentice, the work level is similar to that in a union shop, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at slightly more than minimum wage. Half the day is spent working in the shop and the other half is devoted to class study. The program lasts four to six months.
“It’s a job, the kind you wake up at 6 in the morning to get ready for,” Mr. Bellamy said. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life, but [the volunteers] keep me going. They work with you, and I feel like I can really talk to them.”
One volunteer Mr. Bellamy found he could talk to is Mr. Geiger, even calling him a “second dad.”
The two talk shop, homework, careers and even girl trouble.
“It’s more than donating time,” Mr. Geiger said. “It’s donating a piece of your experience and a piece of your life to somebody who may be missing that piece. I think the kids that come out of this program are more complete than when they came in.”
The program is a challenge, said Mr. Bellamy, who is scheduled to graduate from its ranks on Tuesday. But he feels like the process and Mr. Geiger are making him into a different person.
“I knew he was going to be a funny, cool guy to be around,” Mr. Bellamy said. “He’ll do anything to keep you motivated and on the right page.”
Mr. Bellamy graduated from high school this past June — the first in his family to do so. He said his short-term plan is to get his carpenter’s certification and perhaps in a few years build his own home.
He said the program has made a difference in him.
“Now my life is different,” he said. “I’m doing normal things an average 18-year-old would do. I get up so I can go to work in the morning. I come home and rest. I feel like a hard-working man and I like that.”
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