BELLWOOD - The Rev. Dave Taylor and his wife, Angela, have about 40 kids.
The Taylors run The Door, an after-school ministry for at-risk youth in Bellwood, at 521 Main St. The Door gives the kids a place to hang out, and many stay for the family-style dinner Taylor serves at 5 p.m. weekdays. On any given day, anywhere from 20 to 40 kids show up for dinner.
"We're mom and dad to a lot of these kids," Taylor, 40, said. "We've seen some of them every day for five or six years."
George Palmer of Tipton founded The Door in 1999 through FrontLine Ministries, with a vision "very much like it is today."
"Kids who are on the street - kids don't choose to be on the street," Palmer said. "Kids need a home, and children need a family. When society and cultures say, 'Those darn kids on the street - look at them out there,' well, they don't want to be out there."
That's where The Door - and the Taylors - come in, Palmer said.
"As society dissolves, in my opinion, this is even more and more of an issue," he said. "More and more kids don't have the Cleavers to go home to. ... Fewer and fewer kids have the opportunity to go home and have mom there and have dad [there], and fewer and fewer families are able to sit around table and have dinner and have fellowship."
Taylor and his wife were involved from the beginning, spending their vacations coordinating the program's summer camps. Taylor said Palmer pursued him for the position from the beginning, but he didn't come on board until 2002.
It's a position that requires about 10 hours a day; in addition to running the household and serving dinner, Taylor also raises money and supplies for The Door - everything the ministry needs, including his own salary.
"You have to be called to it," Taylor said. "A lot of people can be trained for it, but it can get old - that rush and the constant young people and their needs, and the work hours, and in spite of all that, having to raise your own salary."
Taylor fits the position because of what Palmer calls his "divine thumbprint."
"It means you're born with talents and skills and abilities," Palmer said. "Very few people, over the course of their lifetime, ever come to realize what theirs are. ... It's our ability to enhance ourselves and grow and become who God really called and wanted us to be."
When the Taylors first moved to Bellwood from Windsor, N.Y., the couple, their three children and the family dog lived in a one-bedroom apartment, which was provided by The Door. They've since moved to a house near The Door.
Before coming to The Door, Taylor had worked with at-risk youth in Buffalo, Chicago and downtown Altoona.
"The social and economic problems and family situations are the same all over, regardless of race or location," Taylor said. "The clothing and fads change, and the lingo changes, but as far as their needs and their problems and how you deal with them, it's almost identical. ... Inner-city work prepared me well for what I do here. The difference is that my children get to be raised in a nice area."
Taylor said he was drawn to working with low-income kids and those from broken homes because mainstream teen ministry curriculum doesn't really address those kids' needs.
"The programming that was out there, when I was in college - I'd already worked with inner-city ministries," he said. "And those youth ministry classes might work in a country church, in a white upper-middle class church, but for the kids I've worked with, I was like, 'This isn't gonna work.'"
He doesn't really see himself as a minister; rather, Taylor looks at himself and at his marriage as a role model for the kids.
"That's what they need, and what the situation here calls for," he said. "They need a dad, they need a man - and if they have one at home, that's great; we're a nice bonus. For the kids who have both parents at home, they love us and feel great that their kids are here. They're glad somebody is backing up their family values. But for kids without that guidance at home, we're a lifeline keeping those kids off the edge."
