{"id":9879,"date":"2023-10-12T19:16:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T19:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=9879"},"modified":"2023-10-12T19:16:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T19:16:50","slug":"antoine-rayford-committed-to-helping-others-avoid-his-youthful-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/12\/antoine-rayford-committed-to-helping-others-avoid-his-youthful-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Antoine Rayford: Committed to Helping Others Avoid His Youthful Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Fletcher Word<\/strong>
\nThe Truth Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Antoine Rayford\u2019s journey from teen drug dealer and school dropout to community activist has been an improbable but not impossible journey. It\u2019s a journey that he is dedicated to helping others make \u2013 to render it more possible for others.<\/p>\n

Rayford, who returned to Toledo about two years ago after being away for almost two decades, is now an HVAC instructor with TTEC and a board member of Peace & Healing, a non-profit organization founded in 2021 in order \u201cto address gun violence and the deaths\u201d of kids in the city of Toledo, said Peace & Healing co-founder Thomas Douglas.<\/p>\n

Peace & Healing is in the process of transforming Toledo Spain Plaza into a meeting and activity spot for families who are recovering from such losses.<\/p>\n

Rayford is also the founder of Tighten Up 419, a non-profit mentoring group that is being sponsored by both Peace & Healing and Phillips Ministries (formerly Grace Temple). The purpose of Tighten Up 419 is \u201cmentoring to build up a brotherhood,\u201d says Rayford. \u201cThe goal is to take my generation to mentor teens and early 20s in a 13-to-16-week period \u2013 and make it personal be mentoring brothers, neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mentors of Tighten Up 419 will be seeking to bring at-risk boys and young men into the fold.<\/p>\n

Rayford knows something about at-risk youth. His own youth was more than just \u201cat-risk;\u201d it was risk itself. From the age of 13, he was living his life on the streets, drinking, taking drugs and, ultimately, selling drugs. He had dropped out of school after the eighth grade, barely able to read and write.<\/p>\n

However, he was a natural leader, he says now, and he managed to get his brothers, uncles and friends involved with the group he co-founded \u2013 the Bee Hive Gang \u2013 affiliated with the Crips. He spent four years on the streets, leading his gang in criminal activities and rarely being influenced by positive messages or messengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never had a positive male figure around us, everything around us was always negative,\u201d he says now of the influences he and his three brothers faced as they grew during their adolescent years.<\/p>\n

After four years in the streets, he did begin to have doubts about his choices but he also was hooked on the lifestyle and his ability to influence his friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing what I thought I had to do \u2013 helping my friends,\u201d he recalls. However, he was also, as the years went on, questioning his choices. \u201cI started thinking, is this it?\u201d He began to daydream: \u201cis this what we are going to do all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"On February 1, 2004, everything collapsed for Rayford, his two friends and the customer they ended up shooting to death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked my friends into running the guy who\u2019d been buying drugs, I had a gun on me; through the loyalty and love we were raised on, I convinced them. I was a coward in that moment. I didn\u2019t have the courage to say I\u2019m just playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rayford handed the weapon to his friends, the trio assaulted the customer, the weapon was drawn and when the customer lunged at them, it was fired accidentally, twice, killing the buyer.<\/p>\n

Days later, Rayford was sitting alone, full of despair and remorse in the juvenile detention center. \u201cI felt condemned, like I was going to hell.\u201d Fate had other plans for him. \u201cA sheriff\u2019s deputy, an older white lady, came into my cell and said, \u2018can I pray for you,\u2019 it was like she was an angel.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cried and prayed with Rayford, held him and told him, \u201cif you want to believe in God, believe in God.\u201d She sparked a flame in the 17-year-old youngster. \u201cI made a promise to God, I felt healed and made a vow to him, \u2018no more drugs, no more selling drugs; from that point forward, I wanted to better myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rayford did pay a price for the violence he had unleashed. He spent the next 14 years incarcerated in various Ohio penal institutions, on a manslaughter charge. But he spent his time wisely. He learned to read and write, obtained his GED and took various college courses. He took HVAC courses along with general maintenance, along with Toastmaster (public speaking) classes.<\/p>\n

As the years passed in prison, he also mentored younger inmates, participating in established programs but also helping to organize a program at North Central Correctional that had the direct impact of reducing prisoner-on-prisoner confrontations. The \u201cChristian Rap\u201d gang intervention program brought in \u201clots of guys causing problems on the compound\u201d and helped curb violence in what was once the most violent prison in Ohio, he says.<\/p>\n

Upon his release, Rayford settled in Columbus, married a childhood friend from Toledo, became a father\u00a0 – twice over \u2013 and eventually relocated to his home town. And, true to the vow he made two days after he was arrested in early 2004, he has not given in to the temptations of his teen years. He has been active in helping others avoid or leave a life in the streets, in helping other avoid the mistakes of his own youth.<\/p>\n

He has also been blessed by the positive influences he has found since, such as Stephanie Boutte of Ternion Training and Education Center (TTEC). \u201cA blessing and a positive impact on the community,\u201d he says of Boutte.<\/p>\n

All these positive influences in his hometown \u2013 Peace & Healing, Phillips Ministries, TTEC \u2013 have helped Rayford continue the promise he made to God and maintain the drive he found while imprisoned to help others, to bring a change to a community, to build a brotherhood, to ensure that the lure of the streets does not negatively impact hundreds and thousands more area youngsters.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fletcher Word The Truth Editor Antoine Rayford\u2019s journey from teen drug dealer and school dropout to community activist has been an improbable but not impossible journey. It\u2019s a journey that he is dedicated to helping others make \u2013 to render it more possible for others. Rayford, who returned to Toledo about two years ago […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[196],"class_list":["post-9879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9882,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9879\/revisions\/9882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9879"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=9879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}