Richard Crawford woke up every day before school and put a case of beer into a cooler. As he thrust the cans into the ice, he took a slow drag on his marijuana cigarette. The mellow feeling the weed gave him would last long enough until he got home from football practice and could reap the rewards of his morning preparation. At night, high and drunk, he and his friends would break into homes to steal more alcohol. 

Hints of this lifestyle crept into Crawford’s routine at around age 13, and by 15, he had a criminal record, was on probation and was on his way to alcoholism and addictions that would eventually bring him to his knees.

Out of control

“It got to a point in high school where the days I didn’t have weed, I was probably going to be late because I wanted to find some before I went to school,” Crawford said.

There were not enough consequences for his actions, said Crawford, a Foley High School class of 2000 graduate. He didn’t get kicked off of the football team, his parents gave him more and more chances and the monthly drug tests he took as part of his probation were simple to scam.

“The older figures I looked up to—the popular ones—they partied and they played sports,” Crawford said. “It was normal.”

After a short stint at a Christian college in Iowa, where he was sent on a football scholarship, Crawford missed the party lifestyle and decided to move back home to Baldwin County.

By his 21^st birthday, Crawford’s criminal charges included two felonies and several DUIs, and after being kicked out of rehab, he was out of options. His parents finally stopped enabling his behavior, and he knew he was going to prison. He had to own up to years of bad decisions.

“I was at my breaking point,” he said. “I was drinking bizarre amounts of liquor. I could easily drink a bottle of liquor without anything else with it. The drinking and drugs were daily.”

Finally, Crawford realized he needed serious help. He called every rehab he could find, and he was rejected over and over again. And then he remembered having a conversation about a yearlong program for troubled boys and young men called Youth-Reach with officer Billy Berrey of the Gulf Shores Police Department. He was ready to go anywhere if it meant avoiding prison and beating his addictions.

One week later, Crawford was at the Youth-Reach facility in Houston, Texas, where his life would change forever.

Youth-Reach

Youth-Reach has been operating in Houston since 1984, when founder Curt Williams, who is originally from Mobile, began taking boys off the streets and helping them overcome addiction in his small apartment. Houston’s Youth-Reach now has 12 full-time staff members and houses 18 boys at a time.

The minimum time boys spend at Youth-Reach is one year, Williams said, and they are welcome to stay longer if they still need a home and are progressing. Youth-Reach serves boys ages 12 to 21.

What makes Youth-Reach unique is that is completely free. It is also Christ centered and focuses on long-term healing, Williams said.

“We call it a program to help people understand it, but it’s almost like, people aren’t coming into a program, they’re coming into the Youth-Reach family,” Crawford said.

About 75 percent of the boys in the program are there because they committed a crime and were sentenced to the Youth-Reach program instead of prison, Williams said.

“It’s strange to be a Christian program and some things that you do can be regarded as punitive, yet at the same time, we’re teaching grace,” Williams said. “It’s a tightrope walk.”

Many of the boys have been through other programs, and they come ready to work the system and get back to living their old lifestyles. They soon find out that Youth-Reach is not like rehab or any other experience they’ve had in the past.

“We want them to be kind of shocked because they thought they were coming to some lockdown or rehab, and they come here and it’s anything but that,” Williams said. “Here, they’re loved and embraced, but at the same time, we’re not gonna put up with your junk.”

Crawford said Youth-Reach was exactly what he needed—he was separated from bad influences, gave his life to Christ and saw examples of families he wanted to emulate.

“Seeing multiple families that have sacrificed their careers and lives to live there and to do this as a job was amazing,” he said. “I’m watching this, seeing men with wives and children, and they’re just living what they’re preaching. It gave me a vision and just showed me who I could be.”

Youth-Reach Gulf Coast

Youth-Reach Gulf Coast opened in 2008 after members of the community, including Berrey, Gulf Shores Police Department’s juvenile officer, began meeting to discuss the need for a program in Baldwin County for troubled teenage boys after several teenagers died in the area.

“I remember at one point counting about 15 friends or acquaintances from my party circle that have died from either overdose or some kind of accident,” Crawford said.

Berrey and other officers, along with judges and parents in the area, were sending so many boys to the program that Baldwin County boys took up 60 percent of the bed space at Youth-Reach Houston, Berrey said.

Williams said he wanted the community to know that opening the program in their area and keeping it going would not be an easy task.

“I tried to push these people so they would just take their kids to Houston, but they wanted something here,” he said. “And as much as I tried to dissuade them with all the horror stories of what it would cost, they still wanted it.”

Several churches, builders and other members of the community banded together to donate land and invest more than $1 million into the program to get it started, Berrey said.

The program was launched successfully and housed nine boys a year until donations began to drop off in late 2010. In February of this year, the board of directors and staff decided to suspend residential operations until all of the bills could be paid and $50,000 could be saved for the future.

The future

Because of the support of the community and the hard work of the staff, Youth-Reach Gulf Coast will reopen in October, Berrey said.

“This grand experiment has worked for 27 years in Houston. We’ve yet to prove whether or not Baldwin County can do it,” Williams said. “We’re going to reopen in October, and we’re going to challenge this community to get behind us to take care of their kids. People can sit around and they can gripe and complain about this generation of boys, but I say, ‘Put up or shut up.’”

Several adjustments were made during the time Youth-Reach Gulf Coast was closed, including the hiring of a new director, who is intimately familiar with both Baldwin County and Youth-Reach—Richard Crawford.

After completing the Youth-Reach program, Crawford spent a few years working in the construction industry and was on staff at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo. About two years ago, he married his wife, Chelsea. They now have a 16-month-old daughter, Caileigh.

The family recently moved into a staff house at Youth-Reach Gulf Coast, which is located in Summerdale. Richard hopes to make as much of an impact on the young men in the program as the families in Houston had on him.

Youth-Reach is almost ready to reopen, but there are still projects that must be completed that will require labor and money, Williams said.

To learn more about the program or about ways you can help, contact Richard Crawford at 918-766-3009 or richard@youth-reach.org.