Lisa Reisman photo
Marcus Harvin leading Saturday's men's group.
“One thing I know for sure. I do not want to die in the streets. I want to live a good life so when I die, they’re saying good things about me 20 years from now.”
One of the attendees of a men’s group called HIMpact shared those words at a Wooster Square-area shelter Saturday afternoon.
The group’s participants requested to remain anonymous to preserve their privacy.
HIMpact founder Marcus Harvin came up with the idea for the group from conversations with the shelter’s clients while he and his team were delivering food to the shelter as part of Fresh Starts, the organization he created using excess meals from area universities to ensure no one goes hungry.
Harvin led a similar group while incarcerated at McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution with Babatunde Akinjobi, now a HIMpact facilitator. “We saw how it could be life-changing in helping people overcome depression, addiction, incarceration,” Harvin said. “Men don’t like to open up about themselves, but give them something they can connect to, and they will.”
In weekly meetings since November, Harvin has distributed copies of The Alchemist and To Kill a Mockingbird, with the group discussing their larger meanings. They’ve taken on topics that range from personal destiny to the power of faith to changing the narrative.
On Saturday, the topic was legacy. Harvin said he had passed Evergreen Cemetery, where his grandmother is buried, on his way to the group. “There’s tombstones there that only have someone’s name, birth date and death date,” he told the 19 men seated in rows of rectangular tables. “Maybe their family didn’t have enough money to do more than that, but still a question came to mind. If I die today, what would they say? What would be my legacy?”
“He tried to do the right thing,” said one man in the second row after a long pause.
“He didn’t have much to pass on with money, but he passed on his experience, his wisdom,” another said.
“I always made people smile,” said a third.
“How about you?” Harvin asked a young man with his head down in the front row. “How would you want to be remembered?”
“My mom would say I’m kind,” he said.
Harvin asked what the man would say about himself.
“I honestly don’t have the right to say how I’ll be remembered,” he replied. “I don’t really have that much experience, except in construction. All I know is I have a job interview on Monday, and that’s all I can think about.”
“Okay, so that’s amazing,” said Akinjobi, the facilitator. “That means you’re driven, determined. Don’t diminish that.”
Harvin agreed. “There’s not very many people looking for jobs in a shelter because they look at this as security,” he said. “It’s not. It’s a stepping stone.”
Another man chimed in. “What I’m doing right now, trying to stay positive, and people are coming through trying to help me. By me staying focused, I ignore the negative, I just keep moving.” He had gone to another men’s group earlier that week. “It just brought it home, that if you stay positive, if you stay focused on what you have to do, good things will come.”
The doorbell buzzed. Someone else came in, nodded at Harvin, and took a seat.
A man in the front row who seemingly had been absorbed in his iPad looked up. “I’ve been doing jail time since ’89, in and out, and I’m getting tired,” he said. “I’m too old, life is too short.” He had recently gone to the New Haven Green. “I sit on the bench there and that’s no place to hang out,” he said. “I seen people dying out there, overdosing. I go ‘wow. I gotta get myself outta here.’”
Akinjobi interjected. “I would say that’s a step forward,” he said. “You knew to remove yourself.” That showed, he said, “a transition within yourself. I’m a different person. I’m not like this. Let me move on.”
Harvin sounded a similar refrain. “These are some of the worst days of your life, but there’s something inside each of you guys that the average person doesn’t have, and that’s the ability to remain positive in a negative situation,” he said. “Our friend here went to the Green for the last time. That’s a positive step.”
The next one, he said, “you have to outgrow the shelter. Your mind has to realize you deserve better, you have to internalize it, believe it to the point that you become it. You don’t belong here, you just happen to be here. Make it your business to get too big for this place.
“One thing I know for sure,” he went on. “Your eulogy is not going to be preached about you living here or dying here. You’re just traveling through. This is just a pit stop.”