Squeezed between the Harlem River and the old Yankee Stadium lies the mostly forgotten neighborhood of Mott Haven. For decades, this South Bronx community has borne the brunt of crime, drugs and poverty in a city known for its luxuriously rich and desperately poor.
Mott Haven is a hodge-podge of storefronts, public housing, abandoned buildings and turn-of-the-century brownstones and recently was ranked by the Daily News as one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City to raise kids.
It’s because of the depth of these problems that the red brick building with the bright green door at Brook Avenue and 141st Street stands out amid similar structures.
It’s home to Graffiti 2 Church and Community Ministries, and as soon as the last bell rings at the elementary school around the corner, some 25 first- through fifth-graders will fill the room for Graffiti 2’s after-school program.
Missionary Andrew Mann takes advantage of the quiet to prepare for the week ahead. Sitting at his laptop, he reaches down and scratches the head of a yellow Labrador retriever at his feet. The slumbering dog peeks one eye in recognition of her master’s touch. Proof seems to know that now is the time to catch some Z’s before the after-school crowd rushes in and the work begins.
The five-year-old lab is not your average pooch. She’s a Canine Assistance Animal trained as a professional therapy dog that has become instrumental in Mann’s ministry at Graffiti 2. Proof’s calm and friendly presence makes her a natural draw to people in the neighborhood.
“More people in the neighborhood know Proof than know me,” Mann said. “I have strangers who come up and greet Proof by name and I have no idea who they are.”
No doubt they’ve heard of Proof from the kids at the after-school program where she earns her dog treats. Proof serves as a reading incentive, de-escalation tool and source of unconditional love for the children.
“For kids who struggle to read, it’s good for them to read out loud,” Mann explained. “Sometimes they’re embarrassed to read to an adult because we know the mistakes they’re making. Proof doesn’t know their mistakes, and they’re comfortable reading out loud to her.”
Mann also uses Proof as an anger management tool. If a kid is mad or upset, Mann hands over Proof’s leash and asks them to watch her. And then he walks away and lets Proof work her magic on the troubled child.
“I wait until they are calm and petting Proof, then I can walk over and talk to them,” Mann said.
Pretty cool “tricks” for a dog, but what’s amazing is her uncanny ability to evaluate a situation and
problem-solve to find a solution.
Mann tells the story of a kid who was having a particularly bad day — “screaming at the top of his lungs, interrupting the rest of the program and making it difficult for the other kids.”
“With no cue from me, Proof got up and walked toward us. She walked right up to the kid and started licking his hands. Like a light switch being flipped off, he stopped screaming and started petting Proof. He was calm the rest of the day.
“She’s a very special dog,” Mann said with a proud smile. “We call her the first missionary dog. For the kids, there’s few better examples in our natural world of God’s unconditional love than what comes through a dog.”
Mann has seen the effects of a culture that largely ignores God — crime, vandalism, malnutrition, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, gang activity. But that hasn’t kept him from moving in and making Mott Haven home.
“We’ve been impacted by the love of Jesus Christ,” Mann said. “And that in turn leads us to impact everyone around us.”
“We can’t draw people to God, only God can do that,” he said. “We can proclaim it, we can share the good news, and we’re just going to keep doing that.”
Mann is starting to see small seeds of change sprouting from the concrete jungle he calls home. When he needed more volunteers to work with kids in the after-school program, he recruited middle school and high school students from the neighborhood.
Today 20 teenagers are involved in a ministry called G.S.A.L.T. — Graffiti Serving and Leading Teenagers. They assist every day after school from 2:30–6 p.m., teaching and mentoring the younger kids. After they walk the kids home, they come back to the center for Bible study and help with their own homework.
Graffiti gives them a safe place after school, they hear the Word of God and get loved on, and in return they are affecting the lives of younger kids. Mann has watched God work in the lives of several students and their families.
“I can see how God is strategically planting seeds all over the place,” Mann said. “I know the impact here is not going to be short-term. I believe the harvest is yet to come, and I believe the harvest is going to be more than we can ever dare ask, dream or imagine.” (BP)
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