Announcer 1: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Across the United States.

The absence of a father in the home has become increasingly common.

According to data from the U.S.

Census Bureau.

Nearly 1 in 4 children in this country is growing up without a resident father.

For boys in particular, research consistently shows higher risks of academic struggle, behavioral challenges, and long term economic hardship.

When stable male mentorship is absent.

Today, we focus on program Inc., a Toledo based organization working directly with fatherless boys to address that gap through structured mentorship, accountability, and character development.

Program, Inc.

seeks to provide young men with the support systems shown to improve educational outcomes, strengthen emotional resilience, and foster responsible leadership.

I'm Doni Miller, and that discussion begins now.

On onto the point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

And you know that you can email me at any time at Donnie underscore Miller at wgte dot org And for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org To the point, you know, an ongoing conversation in this not only this community, but communities across the world is what's happening to boys these days.

The the standards for raising them have to change.

The challenges are increasingly difficult.

Things like loneliness and and misdirection and lack of solid mentorship are problems that we cannot ignore.

Lots of people talk about it.

Very few people step up and do the hard work of doing something about it.

I want to introduce to you this morning a young man that many of you have heard about.

I know, and you've heard about his work.

He is somebody who has stepped up and decided to take this bull by the horns.

Welcome, Mr.

Rayford Tremain Rayford is the founder and CEO of Program Incorporated.

Welcome.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for what you do.

Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely.

This is a critical conversation.

It is, isn't it?

But before we get started, I want to put some parameters around what we're talking about.

Would you explain for folks what you mean when you say fatherless boys?

So what I mean, when we say fatherless as an organization, what we mean is kids growing up with absent fathers, not in the home, but also some of our kids have dads in the home, but they're not present.

They're not present.

So, dad working 50, 60 hours a week, coming home and just.

It's checked out?

Pretty much.

We provide some sort of, space for these young men to have a community.

Dad, he it's.

He has to volunteer.

Right?

Because we don't want to give him an excuse to not be a part of.

So he has to volunteer.

But we also give him an opportunity to just be able to relax and and be a part of the organization.

So we're going to talk about that a little more.

But before we get to the detail of that, what do you see as being a major impact when a dad is absent from a son's life?

And we're talking specifically about boys?

Yeah.

So a son's life, what do you see?

The lack of identity.

Really?

Yeah.

So not knowing what a man is.

Not knowing what a boy is not known.

I mean, they're emulating what they see off of TV when they hear the music.

Things of that nature, but is truly a lack of identity for a young man, which causes them to behave certain ways and they get in trouble and, you know, all of the the data that is attributed to absent father homes.

So despite the number of absent father homes, one of the, the, one of the things that I've heard for a long, long time and I'm not sure how I feel about it, so I'm just putting it out there because it's something that I think it's important to talk about for a minute, is that a woman can't really raise a man.

What do you think about that?

I would say that a woman can do her best.

And I think there's a certain things that takes a male male influence.

Yes.

You know, for me, my grandfather was that part where mom could do certain things.

And there's things that mom didn't know how to do, right?

So she took me around.

My grandfather took us to church, being around the deacons and, you know, the men at church.

So it took a village pretty much to invest in me to become the man that I am today.

So when does the identity growth of a of a young man actually start?

That's a loaded question.

Yeah, I wouldn't I don't know because I think it, it's I think it's relative to each individual.

Right.

So the identity for me I believe happened when I was young, where there's certain things I did and did not want to do, and people that I want to be like, as opposed for some individuals, they still had a childlike mindset until, I mean, we can see we can look in the news and we can see adults with a childlike mindset that don't have the identity of a adult male.

So I think it's relative.

And difficult to answer that question.

So it's, it's would you say then that it's never too late for a mentor to enter a young boy's life and have a positive effect?

I would 100% agree with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have mentors that have came into my life within the past three or 4 or 5 years that have completely changed the trajectory of where I was going in my life.

So really, yeah.

It's never too late to have.

How did they do that?

Spiritually?

Spiritually?

One of the main components, you know, coming in and saying, you know, this is, this is how they've been impacted by, their spiritual journey and, inviting me to join their spiritual journey, with them as well.

And it just helped me with wisdom.

Help me with clarity, help me with my identity and what I want it to be like as a man and as a father.

Really?

Yeah.

Really?

What do you think happens, with the ability for a young man to connect with the rest of the world when a dad's not present?

Is it harder?

It's it's it's super difficult.

I think, a father kind of teaches a young man how to, I don't wanna say network, but how to be in the community and how to move amongst other cultures and things like that.

And when you do not have that, it makes it completely, almost impossible.

I think 90% of our kids suffer from loneliness coming in.

And that is like an epidemic right now, as is kids.

Up until I think, I think they say like 18 and then it jumps to like 23 and, 23 by 26.

They are suffering from loneliness.

And I think that's part of the reason is kids aren't being introduced to, communities like I was when I was growing up, you know?

So that's such an amazing point.

So when kids come in to programing and they talk about being alone, what do they say to you?

Do do they say, I have no friends or my dad's not here or I don't know how to reach out?

Yeah.

So verbally they don't really because kids it's hard to get kids to talk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I forgot that you're right about that.

So verbally, they they don't, do that.

We do have surveys that they do, complete on the way in, but also it's their behavior.

So a lot of their behavior, they're kind of like shy and trying to be for themselves or on their phones the whole time.

And you.

Oh yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We we developed a no phone policy because kids who get in their phone, that's their way of kind of like, feeling calm or just feeling like they, need something to do or their insecurities trying to distract them from from that.

But what we do is we.

And we take their phones and we make them participate and make them be a part of what we're doing.

And what we've seen is that it works.

You know, a lot of our kids, they come in and they don't want to participate, but by the end of the event or by the end of the month or a week or so, they are now fully participating, fully raising their hands and involved in everything that we're doing.

You know, one of the things that that struck me when I was doing research on your organization was what courage it took to step forward from you to step forward and say, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to change this.

What made you decide that this was important to do when you could have done anything else in the world?

It was it was my upbringing, really.

You know, I recall seeing my dad and you about maybe five times for the age of 18.

Not around.

And I not mad at them.

I don't, you know, we don't we have a great relationship right now.

He came back into my life after, Catastrophic event, almost me being in a coma for two and a half weeks.

And your dad.

No.

Me.

You.

Yeah.

So I fell off a balcony, and I was in a coma for two and a half weeks in the hospital for about three months.

That's when my dad came back around, and, that point, I wasn't.

I wasn't upset with him.

I was just like, hey, now that you're here, teach me some stuff mom can't teach you.

How old are you?

And I was 17.

17 years old.

And you said, teach me something.

Teach me.

And I know I can see that I'm about to be a man.

Mom is going to be around, you know, like I'm not gonna live in my mom forever.

So I need to learn some tools that I can sustain on my own.

And he did.

He taught me everything that was on that list.

And a couple of things that weren't on that was, him when my mom got married, they moved to Missouri and, everything that was on that list, I want to say maybe 15 years later, we started teaching in the programing.

No kidding.

No.

So to then, since to those dads out there who think it's too late, no matter what the reason is, you say it's never too late.

Never too late, never too late.

All right, so we're going to go to break, and you'll stay with me, right?

I want to talk to people about the programs, that we have at programing.

And I also want to know a little bit about the whole idea of, of discipline and how that's affected.

Does that do dads keep guys out of trouble?

But we're going to talk about that when we come back.

All right.

All right.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

To me, community means connecting to others.

I'm Doni Miller and welcome to the Point.

I love PBS kids.

We're a community committed to education.

Discover new ideas, dive into exciting subjects, and engage with the world around you.

I would send them personally a t shirt.

Crime doesn't pay in the old West End.

Pass it on.

That's how we cleaned up the neighborhood.

Vision loss for people is not the end.

It's the story.

It's the next chapter.

WGTE Public media invites you to get out and play day.

Monday through Friday.

It's the 419 powered by WGTE with Matt Killam, Gretchen DeBacker, I'm Kevin Mullen.

What can people expect on the show?

Give me an hour.

A reminder of why this is a great place to live, work and play.

Where you come to watch, listen and learn.

Please connect with us on our social media pages.

And as you know, you can always email me at Doni underscore Miller at wgte.org I would love, love, love to hear from you.

And if you want to review this episode or other additional extras, go to wgte.org.

To the point we are talking to the amazing Tremain Rayford this morning who, because of just his love for kids and getting them on the right path, started this incredible program called A Program Incorporated.

When we went to break, you were telling us a story that I hope you tell other people a lot about how your dad reentered your life and at a, at a what we would consider a later age at 17, but really made a difference.

And your message to dads out there is doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

You can bring something.

No matter what.

Yeah.

So let's talk about, the programs that you offer programing.

Yeah.

We offer, a whole host of other programs that have continued to grow since we've we started.

We teach kids everything from how to change a tire, how to tie a tie, how to court.

They go on the very first date with a tie, a tie.

You know, I was in a store.

I will never forget this.

And there was this young man who's about 13, struggling to tie a tie, and an older gentleman walked up to him and said, let me teach you how to do this.

We don't think about those things.

The importance of those things, like tying a tie.

Yeah, yeah, it's so important.

And for us, a tie represents like respect, respect and seriousness.

Yeah.

So at our tie, once we talk about the attributes of a respectable man, you know, when you wear that tie, you are representing something and you are respecting yourself and you're respecting who you are wearing the tie for.

So, wearing a tie is something that I believe every young man growing up should know how to do.

Along with some of the other things that we, you know, teaching kids how to change tires and the importance of, automobile maintenance, financial literacy.

We're doing a bunch of financial literacy things.

We also do some borderline some would say crazy type of events we need like crazy right now.

So we we've expose kids to airplanes, and the kids actually got to fly an airplane, a real aircraft.

Yes.

Yeah.

Let's talk about that for a minute, because that was one of the things I saw.

Yeah, that you guys managed to do.

What was the effect on the kids?

One of the one of the kids we had, he absolutely did not want to fly.

He got there, and he was like, I'm not flying.

I do, and I'm not going in there.

And they have a flight simulator that he was playing with, and all the other kids were flying, and one of the volunteers was like, hey, you're in a computer chair.

Like monitors.

There's a real airplane out there.

But having a real airplane just sitting there.

So he gets up and he goes, it's an airplane.

And the pilot's like, hey, why don't we just drive around?

This is driving around the airport and, you know, and see what happens.

That's a lot funnier than, you know, simulator, right.

The kids are like, okay, the pilot's like, well, now that we're driving around while we just go up just a little bit, can we just fly, like, go up in the air a little bit and the kid's like, yeah, it wouldn't hurt.

And the kid, he's like, he probably thought it was like six foot, but the pilot was like 1300 foot.

So he takes them up and then the kid's like, I went down.

And Glenn, the pilot was like, hey, you know, why do you want to die?

Were you afraid?

He's like, yeah, yeah, I was afraid.

And then Glen goes, but he did it anyway, right?

Right.

And then Kingston's like, yeah.

And then Glen is like, well, I want to congratulate you on today for doing something afraid because all throughout your life there's going to be obstacles and hurdles that you have to jump over afraid.

But I want you to look back on today.

Wow.

Of you doing something afraid as a celebration because you've done this thing.

Afraid you're happy and you love the opportunity to do this.

So every opportunity that comes your way, every hurdle that comes your way, I want you to look back on today as a celebration of doing something afraid and and those those things make so much difference in the lives of kids, don't they?

Oh, especially at a pivotal age, right?

At the ten, 12, 13 or even younger to show them what's out there and that you don't have to be what your environment, what you see in your environment.

We had a kid that was 12 where I asked him what you want to be when you grow up.

He said, Work at Burger King.

And I was like, work at Burger King.

Like, I love the croissant breakfast sandwich.

They came out with a double sandwich.

I was like, yes, but work them.

Why?

He's like, my mom works there.

And I was like, there's your mom.

I said, you can own.

You can own a Burger King, right?

Like, does your mom like working at Burger King?

Because you can own one.

And it just it just allowed him to rethink, like, hey, I do not have to be with my mom.

What my mom's doing.

You know, I like to say, Christine when he says the same and I say it all the times.

Kids cannot be what they cannot see, right?

So we like to expose them to so many opportunities kayaking, fishing.

We take kids to the to the gun range and they talk about firearm safety with, Brian Bird.

And we have police officers and military personnel.

And we actually had a, a gunsmith that made all the guns in the John Wick movies to show them that there is a different career path that you can take with these things, you know, and to learn firearm safety so that when someone's unsafe with a weapon, you know how to get, you know that that's unsafe and you need to get out of Dodge.

So Christine Sweeney, for folks who may not know, is from our hands down.

Yes, another amazing approach to enriching the lives of children in, in in this community.

You know, it it is amazing.

I think I, I'm, I say that word a lot.

But it's true that kids only think they can be what they see right in front of them.

Yeah, and a little exposure.

Yep.

And especially with the encouragement of a father.

Yes.

Or a male?

Oh, yeah.

A male mentor can make all the difference in the world.

And we we see that, we've had kids wanting to sign up to be pilots after that event.

We've had kids, want to be mechanics, have a kid.

Right now that wants to be a, carpenter.

We have some things coming up, so expose them to that, and then we have opportunities for them to get jobs in these areas.

So the kids that are 16, 17 and 18, there's a there's places where they can go and they can learn more about the trade and they can they can use that as a career tool, you know.

So yeah, we're not only opening, exposure to them, but we're giving them real life career opportunities to pursue that for them.

I know, I think I know what your answer to this is going to be, but I'm going to ask you anyway.

Can mentors, male mentors step into the shoes of a dad 100%?

I have, my boys are my boys.

They're they're my boys.

I go through withdrawals when I don't see them.

You can ask my wife.

When I don't see my boys, I go through withdrawals.

What happened?

Not to have any sons is right.

Yes, I have my girls.

We've been blessed with wonderful woman.

Yes, yes, yes.

So they're my boys, and we develop this just relational equity with our kids that they are our kids and our heart posture is positioned in the right way.

We don't do this for funding.

We need funding.

Yes, but we don't do this for funding.

We don't do this for interviews.

We don't do this for anything but to impact our youth and to allow them to navigate life a way that often got us in traps.

Right.

So we want to, invest in them so that they can become better than, than where we are.

And I, I think that one of the things that people hear, but I don't think they actually understand the power of wanting to belong and wanting somebody to want to be with you.

So if if you don't get that from a male mentor or from your dad, right, then you'll get it from wherever you can get it from.

Yeah.

Gangs, bad influences.

I mean, we can see it all in the community where kids that don't have, dads or positive, male influences, they generally, navigate towards crime.

I used to serve on a, committee inside of the Toledo Correctional Facility.

It's called the Boss program, and they report 90% of the individuals that are incarcerated in the Toledo, Lucas County, prison grew up in that stuff at home.

No kidding.

And that's that's truly heartbreaking, because to me, I see that as we could prevent that.

That's right.

We could prevent that.

We could do something about that.

Right.

And I don't want to see our young boys going in a route where they, you know, they don't have to go that way.

There's there's so many career opportunities.

There's so many ways that you can make money and make a living and have a family.

And I have to watch your back.

You don't have to sell drugs.

You don't have to be in a gang.

You don't have to do any of those things.

There's real things you can do and make a great living and provide for your family and your children, your grandchildren.

But if they will never see it, they don't think it exists.

They don't think it exists.

So tell people what you could use in your program.

Volunteers donation.

Oh, yeah.

Things tell us we can definitely use volunteers.

I can probably use, 100 guys right now.

We have a wait list of about, I think we got it under 100.

I'm not sure.

We just did a study of young men, of young men getting into the organization.

So that.

And then, of course, when you welcome more people in, more kids and finances go up to supply food and, and, workshops and things like that, you need more funding.

So funding.

Oh, volunteers, intellectual resource.

So if people know, of a better curriculum or know of a opportunity, a place we can take a tour so kids can see or, or if your company wants to volunteer or if your company wants us to come and tour your facility, things like that.

I think that does a lot more, for Kidman, me telling them about cooking right then to take them to a chef and the chef prepares a meal for them.

So things like that.

I, we love in-kind, support.

We understand right now financially, everybody doesn't have it.

Right.

So sometimes the in-kind support is, is is where it's beneficial for us.

So and for the people that are giving themselves and people can find out how to contact you at your website which is programing programing.org programing.org.

Yeah.

One other thing.

Before you go, I just want you to remind people, remind young men out there how important their contribution is to this program.

Yeah, 100%.

When you contribute to the organization, financially, 80% goes directly to programing, 20% goes to volunteer appreciations, things like that.

Our kids have been some of the data that we recorded was 87% of them.

Notice other parents know that increase of confidence, 90% of them noticed an increase in social skills.

87% of them noticed an increase of life skills.

Thank you so much, my friend, for everything you do.

And you keep up this work.

Thank you.

Thank you for having this work.

And thank you all for joining us today.

I look forward to seeing you next time.

On to the point.

Announcer 1: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Announcer 2: To the point is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.