MACON, Ga. — Not letting boredom get the best of a teenager is the idea behind a new Friday night movie series that aims to keep youth off the streets and out of trouble.
Through our partnership with Mercer University's Center for Collaborative Journalism, Amyre Makupson tells us what "Movies with a Message" is all about.
"Macon has a youth violence problem because of Macon itself," said Carl Myers with Equality Enterprises:
After moving here from New York, Myers noticed something.
"If you drive around Macon, it's vacant. There's nothing for them to do,” he said.
Myers thought that having nothing to do could leave teens with free time that leads to trouble.
"I don't want to be one of the people that just talk about, you know what I mean, like we need to stop the violence, we need to do this, we need to do that, so I always ask myself well, if we tell them to stop, what are we going to do to replace that void,” said Myers.
His idea? Movies with a message.
"We're just trying to create more activities here in Macon other than the club and different things like that,” he said.
Every Friday night, young people are invited to watch and discuss a historical movie in a safe environment.
That's something 13-year-old Justin Thompson says teens need because it's hard to have fun when you feel like you have to watch your back.
"Things happening bad. You could easily get shot,” said Thompson.
But now with an outlet, he looks forward to Friday nights.
“[It] makes me feel happy. Like I'm safe, you know,” he said.
Movies with a Message happens every Friday night at Spark Macon. The cost is $7 and that includes pizza and popcorn.
Click here for Myers’ Facebook feed, which contains the movie schedule.
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