Bonita Mitchell organized a 90-voice youth choir for Second Baptist Church’s “Cherish Your Life” musical Saturday evening in the auditorium of the Dale A. Lyons Building at Southwestern Michigan College. “We’re trying to prevent young people from having to go through the same situations that we’ve gone through,” Mrs. Mitchell said. (The Daily News/John Eby)

By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

A choir of 90 children filled the Southwestern Michigan College stage in the Dale A. Lyons Building Saturday evening for gospel singing, raps and acrobatic break dancing against guns and violence and girls saving themselves for marriage.

“We’re trying to instill family back into our community,” said Bonita Mitchell, whose husband, Kevin, pastors Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. “We all can make a difference. Today is the day we start making a difference in our community.

Second Baptist Church and the Rev. Tyrone Pace, pastor, sponsored this free “Cherish Your Life” musical.

The I’m Saving Myself organization was born out of a desire of Thread Of Hope Records CEO Mrs. Mitchell to help students make better life choices after a popular student committed suicide at her old high school in Eau Claire.

I’m Saving Myself (Web site www.imsavingmyself.org) is a Michigan-based non-profit organization dedicated to teaching today’s youth the importance of refraining from suicide, sex, violence, drugs, alcohol and gangs.

The Benton Harbor-based program, which has been around for 11 years and taken to Los Angeles and Minnesota, focuses on providing solutions to boost self-esteem through music, dance and drama.

“A lot of social issues young people go through,” Mrs. Mitchell said, “adults do, too. A lot of us in our 40s haven’t gotten over some of the things that happened to us. It dictates some of our behavior. So what we’re trying to do is to prevent young people from having to go through the same situations that we’ve gone through. Prevention and intervention.

“We also want young people to know that when you make a mistake, it’s not about how you make that mistake, it’s about how you get up after you make it. We have to let these young people know that we’ve been there, done that. We only want you to be better than us. It’s about raising the awareness for these young people to express themselves through whatever avenue. Tell someone about what these young people are doing in this community because they are changing lives. When my son got in trouble, I made him go in the studio and write a song that’s going to help young individuals do something positive. There are people who struggle every day just to get up in the morning.”

“We want to thank everyone who came out tonight,” the Rev. Pace said, “because it shows these youth that you are behind them. We want to minister to them at the age they are right now because they deal with problems as well. We don’t want them to get to our age and still be stuck dealing with the same issues. We want them to be able to express themselves, and being on stage today is a way for them to express themselves.”

Veronica Ratliff spoke about her “temple. It’s not like a pyramid or anything ancient. It’s with you 24/7 because your temple is your body. The way you treat it, take care of it. If you don’t always cherish your temple, no one else will. Always remember to cherish yourself.”

After the choir sang “Dreams” and Deborah Brookins sang “Behold the Lamb” with her two daughters, Elyse Wolverton spoke, Chelsea Thomas, 10, sang “I Hope You Dance” and  Queenisha Owens gave her praise through dance.

Then came rapper Terrance Turner, speaker Kaisha Martin, hip-hop dancers dissing guns and drugs with backflips, Maya and Asiah singing “Just Me” and Jessica Garret performing “Greatest Love.”

Praise dancers moved to “I’m Saving Myself,” Courtney Holts performed “Praise is What I Do” with the live band, Sirshan and JVB rapped and the choir closed out the program with “Cherish Your Life” — with lyrics such as, “Make a difference in somebody’s life/And encourage them along the way.”