By Rich Bockmann
For U.S. Army reservist Lakia Echols, working to build orphanages in war-torn Kuwait was nothing compared to the hostilities she faced when returning home to Far Rockaway intent on helping troubled youth.
“When I got home I went to a lot of meetings to figure out how to get involved,” said Echols, who returned home from a two-year tour in the Middle East at the age of 25. “A lot of people would reject my ideas and be like, ‘I don’t know you. Why are you trying to help?’ I was like, well if we’re supposed to be on the same mission why is everybody rejecting ideas?”
“I was the youngest one in there, which was a problem too.”
Echols, a lifelong Far Rockaway resident, joined the reserves in 2001 seeking a change of environment and the difficulties she put her mother through. What she got in return was the structure and discipline that gave her the grounding to follow her calling.
“After serving overseas for two years I finally discovered my passion: giving back to my community,” she said.
“Out there I did a lot of community development. I worked in an orphanage with children,” she said, amused by the fact. “I never thought I would work with kids. I was always trying to run from them!”
Echols came home in 2006, a year Far Rockaway’s 101st Precinct recorded seven murders. Among the slain were 16-year-old Mario Young, who was shot in the head outside a KFC restaurant, and Christopher Glenn, a 16-year-old honor student who was gunned down outside his home.
The incidents motivated Echols to start her own youth-mentoring program and in 2011 she founded Make My Mother Proud, which provides a range of support services to at-risk youth.
The program has taken on some 60 mentees since its inception, many of whom Echols brings by her office on the St. John’s University campus in Jamaica Estates to help broaden their horizons.
“Some kids have never been on a college campus before,” she said. “It motivates them, makes them say, ‘I want to be here.’”
The non-profit’s mission has expanded to reach out to youngsters at John Adams High School in South Ozone Park and Richmond Hill High School, and Echols takes every opportunity to help her young proteges network, such as visits to New York Knicks superstar Carmello Anthony’s basketball camp.
People apparently have trouble saying “no” to the persuasive Echols.
The Christmas after Superstorm Sandy hit neighborhoods where she had long been at work she called a friend who owned a five-ton truck and convinced him to lend the vehicle as a makeshift sleigh from which Santa could deliver presents.
Echols donned an elf suit and spread some holiday joy. The next year a company donated a 27-foot float for the occasion, and though there were no toys to give out, Echols said bags of candy and plenty of holiday cheer sufficed.
“At the end of the day people didn’t need toys,” she said. “People were just happy to be feeling the love.”
Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at rbockmann@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.
