Krieger: Rev. Kelly's Open Door can keep Williams' legacy alive

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 6, 2007 at midnight

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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is planning to attend today's funeral for Darrent Williams in Fort Worth. That's nice.

You know what would be nicer? If the NFL and the Broncos each wrote a fat check in Williams' memory for the Rev. Leon Kelly's starving local anti-gang program.

Carmelo Anthony says he's thinking about making a donation to help support Williams' two kids. That's nice.

You know what would be nicer? If Anthony did in Denver what he did in his native Baltimore, helping to fund a place for inner city kids to go that might keep them out of the clutches of the drug-financed gangs that rule their neighborhoods.

And not just Anthony. Any of Denver's highly paid pro athletes.

"Back in the day, we had Alex English, Wayne Cooper, Fat Lever, these guys used to come over to the hood, they'd come over to school all the time," Kelly told me Friday. "It was more like a family back then. But now, we don't know none of these players."

In the absence of such help, Kelly's Open Door program does what it can, hosting about 100 kids every day after school. Kelly stresses prevention, trying to reach younger inner-city kids with a simple message: Gangbanging might make you money, but it will also make you dead.

The Rev goes to lots of funerals and takes lots of pictures. But his program, run on a shoestring, is a drop in the bucket.

I've gotten a lot of mail this week from people asking what they can do. The death of Williams, a popular member of the Broncos, has reawakened us to the problem of urban violence.

This is ironic for the usual reasons. Urban violence never went anywhere. We suddenly noticed it again when it struck a member of the Broncos. When gangbangers are shooting one another, it barely makes the papers.

Here's the answer to the question: What you can do is support anti-gang programs and pressure politicians to make the fight against gangs a priority again.

"Right now, something major has to happen for it to be revisited anymore," Kelly said.

Kelly runs his program on a budget of $250,000 a year, mostly small grants from private foundations. Fighting gangs does not make the cut on Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's priority list.

"John says, 'Well, unfortunately, we don't have any money,' " Kelly recounted. "Here a city mayor that's telling me, 'Oh, Rev, you're doing a great job, but we just don't have any money.'

"He says, 'We're putting more money into the police department and enforcement.' I said, 'Man, don't just kick butt.' He says, 'We just don't have the money. But you've got my support, you've got my prayers.'

"There used to be money at the state level, but now it is getting so competitive. With this homeland security, all the funds have been channeled that way," Kelly said.

"Before (former) Sen. (Ben Nighthorse) Campbell got out, he got us a little bit of change from the feds. But that was for two years. Last summer, it was gone. And I said, 'Now, you see how that worked? You finally get support and you start to be able to do some things and increase your boundaries. Now

we've got all these kids depending on us and then you took the money away.' "

What about Campbell's successor, Sen. Ken Salazar?

"Oh, man," Kelly said resignedly. "People are busy. They've got their own agendas. They know of our problem. I don't need to beg nobody for nothing. If they don't see the worth, you keep living. Now, when it happens to your kid, your situation, then you'll be interested."

The Rev has been doing this a long time. He was in the middle of Denver's first awakening to the gang problem in the early 1980s when the movement of Crips and Bloods from Los Angeles first got the attention of authorities.

Back then, anti-gang money flowed. Lots of nonprofit agencies got in line to receive it. When other problems became more fashionable, the money dried up. So did the organizations. Kelly's Open Door is the only one left. That doesn't mean the problem went anywhere.

"The level of violence is getting younger," Kelly said. "Kids are being exposed to this element in elementary and middle school."

The only thing that has changed is our interest in the problem. If you want to help, you can contact Open Door on the Web - TheRev.org - or by phone (303-893-GANG).

"Being here all these many years,

we've been able to keep our doors barely open," Kelly said. "But there's been tough times like now. People often say, 'Why did God allow this to happen to Dee?' I say, 'Sometimes we can't understand it, but I can only think there's got to be a purpose.'

"If it hadn't happened, we wouldn't even be talking now. Maybe this was one of God's purposes for him, to allow his legacy to go on.

"When the Broncos and others say that they want to do something in the name of Darrent, my thought is it would be so great if someone would want to hook up with us, for example, and allow his legacy to live through us.

"We deal with a hundred Darrent Williamses every day. It would be nothing for the Broncos to put us under their umbrella, or any folk out there who want to say, 'Let's support this effort in the name of Darrent.' "

kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com

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