After his mentee was killed, this man made it his mission to stop violence in Macon

Joseph Mann had heard about a shooting at the Family Dollar at 2584 Rocky Creek Road on July 17, 2020, but he didn’t initially realize he had met the victim.

Mann knew Devaun Patton, 16, through his son, Da’modrick. Mann said Patton and Da’modrick were getting into fights, and he invited Patton over to his house to find out what was happening.

After learning about what Patton was going through, Mann started mentoring the boy to try to help him. But then Patton was killed, shot during an “altercation” a few months before his 17th birthday.

“For my son to be involved how he was, that really helped me to put things in perspective because I could have been like, ‘Oh man, another one lost,’ but I just didn’t want to do that. I felt like it was time for change,” Mann said. “I wanted to turn his death into a triumph.”

Project 32, a nonprofit that mentors young men in an effort to curtail violence, was born.

Patton’s death marked the 32nd homicide in Macon-Bibb County in 2020, and Da’modrick, 16, helped him get in touch with Patton’s father to get permission to start the organization in honor of Patton’s life.

“What we have to realize is that our kids see violence every day, so they mimic what they see and what Project 32 is here for is to show them something different and let them know that it’s okay to express yourself without having to use violence,” Mann said.

What does Project 32 do?

Project 32 hosts events around supporting the community and helping young men have an outlet to express themselves.

One of Project 32’s main events is called Get It Off Your Chest during which kids are allowed to speak in a group to a mental health specialist about the issues they are facing.

“Just being able to moreso connect people to valuable resources is one of my biggest ultimate goals and having people kind of reframe how they see mental health,” said Donterio Smith, vice president of Project 32.

Smith, an associate professional counselor who has been working in the mental health profession since 2013, runs the Get It Off Your Chest events each fourth Saturday of the month at the Bloomfield-Gilead Recreation Center.

Mental health services can sometimes terrify people, Smith said, but if they are exposed to it, they realize it’s helpful. Having the Saturday events helps the kids realize they are not alone in their struggles, and they have a community of support.

“This was a good way to give them a safe, constructed environment to be able to kind of just talk about things, get some education, and be able to be exposed to things they haven’t been exposed to before,” Smith said.

Mann wants to start doing the event weekly rather than monthly to reach more children, he said.

“Mental health is the one thing in our community that nobody ever wants to talk about. So I think once we get the word out more, I think people would be more privy to doing it because you’d be surprised how many kids we get coming,” he said.

Project 32 also hosts fitness classes at Bloomfield-Gilead Recreation Center. They throw birthday parties for kids and host Single Mom Mondays, in which they gather goodie baskets to give to single moms in the community. They also have business showers that celebrate different businesses in the community and allow the public to see what these businesses have to offer, Mann said.

Although Mann said they gear their programming towards kids between the ages of 11 and 16, kids in the program range from 8-17 years old because they aren’t going to turn away anyone who wants to participate, he said.

If people would like to volunteer or donate to Project 32, they can email Mann at project32macon@gmail.com.

The organization is mostly self-funded, but Mann said they became a 501c3 so that more foundations and donors would be willing to donate to their mission.

“It just made more sense to become a nonprofit to get more help for the kids,” he said.

How does it impact violence in Macon?

Smith compared the reason for violence in Macon to the reason a baby cries. Because a baby cannot verbalize what is wrong, it cries. Similarly, adults who cannot verbalize their feelings tend to express themselves with their actions, Smith said.

“It’s a whole lot easier to use actions than it is to use words for most people because feelings make people vulnerable, and who likes to feel vulnerable?” Smith said.

Mann said he believes the violence in Macon is caused because children are becoming a product of their environment.

“Our children see a lot more trauma than suburban kids, I’m just going to be honest. Our kids see death, murder, violence every day, and that’s PTSD because they have to live through that. So, how do they process through it? They don’t,” he said. “We’re trying to nip that in the bud. The stuff that they see does not define who they are. We have to change that narrative.”

Mann participated in a similar program when he was growing up, and it introduced him to different experiences that helped his future.

“They just need to see more men loving on each other, and so they understand that it’s okay for us to hurt,” Mann said. “We’re just going to change the community one kid at a time.”

This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 1:01 PM.