At first glance, Cathy De Schouwer and Antoine Jennings are an unlikely duo. But their disparate backgrounds actually speak to the core values of Crossover Mission, the organization they co-founded to help at-risk youth reach their full potential through sports and education, building a “bridge of friendship between cultures” in the process.
Although both are Indian River County natives, De Schouwer, a CPA with a master’s from UF, is married with three children, ran a successful business with her husband, lives in a lovely home just feet from the ocean and embodies the essence of a Vero Beach lifestyle. Jennings was the quintessential bad boy, raised in Gifford in an impoverished, dysfunctional family. He allowed crime to steal his dreams before finally escaping his self-destructive lifestyle.
“I made a lot of bad decisions and missed a lot of great opportunities. I made some decisions that nearly cost me my life,” says Jennings, now married with two children. “So I want to tell kids my story and tell them about decision making and about wrongfully placing sports ahead of academics. And to just tell them that they can make it and they can be whatever they want to be.”
Their worlds collided thanks to their sons’ mutual love of basketball.
“We met because our sons were playing on the same recreation department basketball team four years ago,” De Schouwer explains, noting that after watching Jennings coach his son AJ, then 9, her son Louis, a year younger, wanted to train with him. “It wasn’t really a natural at first. It went very well, but it was kind of awkward. There was that cultural difference. He seemed kind of like a gangster to me, but he was just such a great coach.”
Eventually, De Schouwer says, “he started telling me his life story and his vision and I was so moved. For days I was very deeply moved by it, thinking, somebody should help him get that started. I didn’t think it would be me.”
The idea for a program slowly began to gel and they submitted a business plan to Rev. Bob Baggott, senior minister at Community Church of Vero Beach. He liked the idea and provided them with start-up funding in February 2014. That September they received their 501(c) 3 nonprofit status. At the recent Sheriff’s Annual Exhibition Basketball Game, Crossover presented its inaugural Unity Award to the Community Church, recognizing their efforts to unify the community.
Within the first two months they had 50 youngsters in the program. Boys and girls ages 8 to 16 are enticed through basketball and, if their grades are not 2.0 or higher, must join their tutoring program, run with assistance by roughly 50 volunteers.
“They’re taking the most at-risk kids, the kids that are falling through the cracks. The kids that haven’t had much of a leg up in Gifford, kids that are really struggling in school,” said board president Bill Harris.
“It’s more like life skills than anything. We’re starting from scratch,” said Jennings. “We’re teaching them the importance of a handshake and the importance of speaking the right way. A lot of our kids struggle with English simply because they write the way they talk, which is a lot of Ebonics. Another thing is teaching them the right way to dress according to the setting. It’s things that we think of as basic but it’s a lot to them and helps with the transformation process.”
Often students come from homes with little structure, their parents lacking the ability or resources to enroll their children in other after-school programs. Crossover Mission charges a modest $25 for the year-round program.
Crossover Mission is now a full-time job for both Jennings and De Schouwer, who are in many ways considered surrogate parents.
“It’s a daily effort, but it’s based on what we would do for our own kids. There is a tremendous need,” says De Schouwer, noting that funding is needed for everything from transportation and snacks to sports equipment and even eyeglasses.
“Antoine and Cathy basically have about three hours of personal time to themselves each week,” says Gavin D’Elia, a Vero Beach High School senior who joined the board last year. “The rest of the time they’re driving these kids around to sports and after-school activities, helping with homework and doing whatever they can to help them. They’re sort of filling in the gaps of the family structure that many of these kids lack.”
D’Elia is recruiting National Honor Society students to tutor and inspire Crossover youngsters to work toward long-term gains and a successful future.
“Basically, the way I see it is I talk to my friends who say they want to travel thousands of miles across the world to some impoverished micro-nation to try to help families and kids,” says D’Elia. “I tell them, you don’t have to travel that far. You just have to travel a few miles down the road to our own back yard where families and kids face the same problems. When you’re working in the community here on a constant basis, you’re able to see this direct, immediate and consistent impact.”
Crossover has had remarkable success. The first year, just 5 percent of their enrollees were academically eligible to compete on sports teams and most were at risk of failing their grade. Now 95 percent are academically eligible for school sports and none are at risk of failing.
Unfortunately, there are significant obstacles to joining school teams – physical exams, an extensive application process and numerous expenses such as fees, transportation and gear.
“We are helping them with all aspects of trying to be on a school team,” she says. “We believe that it helps them rise to a higher level of peer acceptance and raises their mindset for the future.”
“It gives them confidence; hope,” adds Jennings. “It makes them believe that what they’re doing works and it’s worth continuing.”
Harris stresses the term crossover also pertains to the community at large, with people who would not otherwise cross paths now interacting, adding, “It’s way beyond just the kids; we’re helping the community in every aspect. The crossover name is in fact the mission.”
“We’re literally crossing over races and gender,” adds D’Elia. “Now at least one of our objectives is to make sure that each of these kids realizes there is no distinction between our races. We’re making a seamless crossover with these kids. It’s just a family. We don’t think black or white anymore; this is the Crossover Mission family.”
