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Pro-vision is located in a small rectangular brick-faced building on the corner of Cullen and Balkin on Houston’s southeast side. The program has three main components, an all male middle charter school, a manhood development program and a job training program. One of its founders is former Philadelphia Eagles all-pro cornerback Roynell Young. He says boys end up at Pro-Vision because HISD wasn’t able to educate them for any number of reasons.
Young, who is known as “Coach Roy” among staff and students, says new students are tested and evaluated to find out where they are academically. They received all the remedial help they need and he says relationships are developed that help reveal the real issues in the students lives.
Pro-Vision actually got off the ground because of relationships. Roynell Young says he and co-founder Mike Anderson were shooting baskets trying to figure out how to reach out to young people when some boys asked if they could shoot some hoops too. Young and Anderson took advantage of the situation and began meeting with the boys in what became Pro-Vision’s Manhood Development Program. One of the boys was Kenneth Patrick. He was in 7th grade at the time.
Today Patrick is the director of the Manhood Development Program at Pro-Vision, helping to instill a sense of respectability and responsibility in other young men.
Pro-Vision has been at the Cullen and Balkin location for seven years and recently broke ground for a new facility on a 16 acre site in the Sunnyside area. Roynell Young says the new site will allow for more students and will expand services to include adults and seniors.