Javell talks with sorrow about substance abuse in youth today. “It's starting in their home life. Either they’re homeless, or the parents are not around. . . Dealers approach, offering a new family and getting the kids addicted. They start out
light—THC—and move on to something heavier.” He says with tears, “I’ve seen kids, ten, eleven years old, on heroin.” He talks of the fentanyl crisis. “They're putting it into the marijuana, and the kids are OD’ing. . . and we're losing. The day after graduation, a kid I coached died from a heroin overdose. I cry every week just thinking about some of the things going on.” He's talked to the youth dealers too, but often they feel the only other choice is unemployment. But Javell has made a difference: “Kids say to me, ‘I just wanna go home.’ I say, ‘Let's call somebody to get you back on track so you can get clean.’” He adds, “You can try to save one. I figure if I can get one out of ten to get cleaned up, that one is going to get somebody else to help somebody else, and they’ll share their testimony: ‘Hey, this is what happened to me, and this is not where you want to be. This is how I got out of it, and this is who I talked to. All you can do is just give it a try.’” Regarding youth homelessness, Javell shares, “We coaches discovered one boy who’d been living in the locker room. One of the coaches took him in and made sure everything got right. And this kid—you wouldn't believe it, he's doing great! All he needed was just somebody, that's all.” So, what can be done? “Holding parents accountable and educating people on what this stuff does to you, how it breaks your body down. We need money to clean up the neighborhoods. We need to educate them about what they can do and how they can get jobs. And the parents who are addicted—get them help without charging them all this money. We don't have enough homes; we don't have enough people doing what Rodney’s doing right now.” Javell’s message to all? “Keep love in your heart--that's really important—love.”
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