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Males-2-Men empowers boys to become responsible men

By Bruce Hope bruce@opcfla.com
Posted 3/4/20

ORANGE PARK – Darius Donté has always had a calling to serve. The 46-year-old Pensacola native first followed that calling into the U.S. military, serving for more than 20 years in the Air Force …

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Males-2-Men empowers boys to become responsible men


Posted

ORANGE PARK – Darius Donté has always had a calling to serve. The 46-year-old Pensacola native first followed that calling into the U.S. military, serving for more than 20 years in the Air Force and retiring as a Master Sergeant.

During his enlistment, he was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas, Keesler AFB at Biloxi, Mississippi, Alconbury in England and Vogelweh Air Station in Germany. He also deployed to Southwest Asia in support of operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. His military occupation was Equal Opportunity and Diversity Counselor.

That position allowed him to serve on multiple levels.

"While serving, many adult males would come into my office," Donté said. "They would literally cry about the fact that their father wasn't there in their life and they were still feeling the impact as adults, of their father not being in their life. I had many NCOs confide in me. I had many adult males who were husbands and fathers who would come into my office in a closed-door environment and break down in tears to try and figure out what's the deal with their fathers not being in their lives. For me, that's what sparked it."

The "it," to which Donté refers, is the organization that he would eventually go on to found, Males-2-Men United.

Males-2-Men United is an organization based in Orange Park that focuses on mentoring and empowering boys to become responsible men.

Donté retired from the Air Force in 2018 and he soon settled in Orange Park. During his time in the military, he formed the habit of watching local news wherever he was on temporary duty assignments all over the country. He noted without fail that there were always murders committed by young men and this began to weigh on him. When he arrived in Jacksonville, this habit continued and he became even more shocked.

"I'm checking the news and I see that Jacksonville was the murder capital of Florida," he said. "I was floored. In the year 2019, there were approximately 20 combat deaths in the military combat zone. For that same year, there were approximately 180 criminal deaths in the greater Jacksonville area. I was floored by that stat to say a person stands a better chance to put on a uniform and go into the combat zone and stay alive than to walk the streets of the greater Jacksonville area."

It was then, he said, that God spoke to his spirit to do something.

More scary stats worked to push Donté into action. He learned that the average age of murders in the area was between 13 and 19 years old. He also learned that there were approximately 50 teenagers on death row or serving time for murder who agreed to be interviewed. Roughly 90 percent of them said that they had grown up without a father figure in their life. The majority of those also said that had they had a male figure in their life, they would have made different decisions in their lives.

"It brought me to tears," he said.

Donté started his organization, with a goal of working to change lives by affecting what he could; that reported lack of a male figure. He figured that by providing that, he could young men, who admittedly would have made better decisions do just that.

"Males-2-Men United doesn't have a physical location, but I am working on that," he said. "We hold monthly presentations at the Jacksonville library." These workshops cover a variety of topics such as bullying, insecurity, addiction, suicide prevention and more.

Donté has ambitious goals for the cause he deems so worthy. In the coming years, he looks to expand his philosophy and organization throughout Florida, before taking it to the rest of the southeastern region and eventually the nation. His drive for success and his military background reflect the level of importance on which he places his mission. He, however, doesn't use the word, expansion, to describe the spread of Males-2-Men United.

The word he uses? Conquer.

"I've been through a lot of stuff. I know who I serve. I've got to fulfill my purpose. I've been entrusted to fulfill the mission of Males-2-Men United. I've been entrusted to educate a lot of men, with the hopes that they will get an understanding and take a liking to what it is I have to share, so they can ultimately stop killing each other in these streets," he said.

The next meeting of Males-2-Men United is March 31 at 5:30 p.m. at the Argyle Branch Library.

More information on Donté’s program is available at http://m2mu.org/.