A summit, a metaphor and a mission to keep kids out of prison

Love, Hope & Healing’s second ‘Stop Throwing Rocks at the Chain Gang’ gathering is May 2.

A life-changing realization during the COVID-19 pandemic led West Palm Beach couple Donte and Yolanda Bates to found an organization to spread love, hope and healing.

“Donte’s not only changing lives. but he’s trying to change systems. What Donte is doing is feeding the fish while trying to make sure that the pond isn’t as toxic,” the Rev. Rae Whitely, Bates’ mentor and a community leader, said in an interview with Stet News.

The Bateses’ nonprofit, Love, Hope & Healing Inc., founded in 2020 to clear an easier path for local teens, has grown to encompass 80 families.

On Saturday, May 2, its second annual “Stop Throwing Rocks at the Chain Gang” youth summit convenes at Gaines Park in West Palm Beach. It’s a free, family-focused day of fun and information that addresses a lack of economic opportunities, disproportionate crime and incarceration among Black youth and gun violence. 

The event features panels of experts discussing legal issues, plus interactive sessions on mental health and conflict resolution and — the fun part — community networking with games, music and food.

All are welcome.

The event’s name is designed to get your attention, Bates said. “When we say, ‘Stop throwing rocks at the chain gang,’ that’s a metaphor. The rocks symbolize the crimes kids are committing. The chain gang is the consequence of those crimes, of being incarcerated.”

Building on last year’s summit

At the first summit in 2025, Bates introduced his target audience — kids ages 13-22 — to elected officials, law enforcement, prosecutors and assistant public defenders in a neutral setting “where they could stand in front of these people they don’t normally see except in a courtroom, in a holding cell or in an interrogation room,” Bates said.

A second panel told personal stories of perseverance. The five speakers had spent collectively almost 50 years in prison, Bates said, but came out whole. “The goal is that the kids will take that in and say, ‘That’s not the path I want to go down.’”

This year, a second day has been added for a roundtable discussion with local civic leaders, law enforcement and clergy on Friday, May 1. “Day One is the executive strategy session on community violence,” Bates said. “We’re bringing in law enforcement, elected officials and other community agency leaders to roll out the roadmap, get on the same page.”

Whitely, the founder of Trinity Counseling Center in Riviera Beach, will be there, as he was last year. Trinity Counseling Center is a faith-based organization that helps the community deal with financial struggles, domestic violence, addiction and mental health by providing access to community resources. The two men joined forces about three years ago.

At the time, Bates was learning to rally community support, and Whitely had connections. Bates had questions, Whitely said: “How do you secure funding? How do you understand the political landscape that goes with running a not-for-profit organization? How do you get exposure?’ And based on the role that I have as a pastor and a community organizer, I was able to help him navigate in those spaces.”

As Bates learned the municipal ropes, he continued having informal meetings supporting other Black men in his community, which Whitely joined. “Our casual meetings turned into therapeutic space, and those conversations shifted to us coming together to organize around issues. Those casual meetings turned into action.”

Thinking bigger

Whitely recalls that Bates told him: “I am going to have these conversations, but I am also going to attack some of the systems. I’m going to try to create laws to address it. I am going to do both simultaneously.”

During the last legislative session, Whitely and Bates traveled to Tallahassee to discuss with state Reps. Jervonte “Tae” Edmonds and Debra Tendrich legislation supporting incarcerated citizens who are returning to the community.

Helping kids and other Black men was one thing. Changing the system was another. “Donte was smart enough to know the support he needed and to be able to identify who he needed it from. He knew how to make the ask from different people. And that’s why they are doing the amazing things that they’re doing now,” Whitely said.

One group Bates approached for help is Cities United, a national alliance designed to help communities interrupt the cycle of gun violence, dismantle the inequity in the criminal justice system and invest in an anti-racist infrastructure. 

Cities United supports agencies like Love, Hope & Healing in redefining public safety by providing speakers for events like the summit and hosting monthly Zoom meetings. Support for the summit also comes from partners like Inner City Innovators, Trinity Counseling Center, Pathways to Prosperity, the EJS Project and Leadership Palm Beach County.

Childhood sweethearts find purpose during COVID

Yolanda and Donte Bates, both 45, started dating in the eighth grade, settling not far from where they were raised. With no children, they still felt called to help the kids and families they saw struggling in the West Palm Beach neighborhood. “Part of the reason I started the nonprofit was because back in 2004, I went to prison,” Bates said. 

His crime? Selling marijuana. Bates was sentenced to two years working outside in the Florida heat during the day with plenty of time to think after the sun went down and the cell doors slammed shut.  

“I knew this wasn’t the life for me. I’m not proud I went (to prison), but I’m glad I did. I had to take a look at my life,” Bates said, “and I knew I had to make a change.”

He did change. He married Yolanda and found a good job. He helped out around the community, went fishing when time allowed, enjoyed a glass of Uncle Nearest whiskey and an Opus X Perfecxion No. 77 Shark cigar once in a while with his friends. He felt blessed.

Then COVID hit.  

Donte and Yolanda both got sick. As they recuperated, they talked about how the dysfunction they grew up with had to stop.

“When COVID came, a lot of stuff changed,” Bates said, “but one positive thing I saw, when everything shut down, you’d see parents riding bikes with their kids, going for a walk with their kids. You saw family. Before COVID, with parents working all the time, you didn’t see that.

“I said, ‘That’s it! That’s what we’re missing in our community. Parents having the time to just sit back and engage.’ She’s in one room, I’m in another room, yelling back and forth, and Yolanda said, ‘Let’s make it official, get out there and get it done.’ So we made it our personal mission to help the kids behind me not make the same mistakes I did.”

A few weeks later, at the end of July, Yolanda walked in with the paperwork that made Love, Hope & Healing Inc. a registered corporation with a goal to find practical ways to strengthen Black families.

To start, the couple focused on what they learned in counseling early in their marriage. “We went every Tuesday for almost 18 months,” Bates said. “We learned things that we tried to suppress were coming out in our marriage, and it was affecting how we think, how we treat each other, how we go about things. That’s when we really honed in on the understanding that we have got to be the ones to break this and help the kids break this stuff.”

Yolanda wrote about her own epiphany on the nonprofit’s website: “I myself grew up in an underserved community, where I realized that what I considered normal behavior was in actuality abnormal and damaging. It was as I became an adult I understood and realized the collective experiences of my community were similar to mine. 

“I began to understand that there are healthy means of communicating and healing from past trauma. It is why Love, Hope & Healing was born.”

It’s a passion project for the couple. Since they started the organization, he and Yolanda have continued to work their full-time jobs. Donte works at the Publix distribution center in Boynton Beach. Yolanda works at Jupiter Medical Center. The rest of the time, they’re working to spread Love, Hope & Healing’s message. 

Mentoring, mental health and wellness

“We’ve grown into a small but mighty force within the community,” Donte said..”It showed us that our work is needed and our purpose, our mission is to provide a brighter future for youth and families in the community through wellness, mental health, support, and mentorship.”

Unhealed trauma is the core reason these kids don’t succeed, Bates said. Much of the work Love, Hope & Healing does is day-to-day support with a focus on teaching parents and kids to communicate. Twice-monthly mentoring sessions are safe spaces for parents and kids to talk about difficult subjects.

In a segment called “What Keeps Me Up At Night,” kids anonymously write a single sentence on a slip of paper in answer to that question. 

Some answers are current and urgent: “Thinking about what I’m going to eat tomorrow,” “Hearing my parents fight in the other room,” and “Wondering if I’m going to be molested tonight.” Others are born of painful memories: “Remembering standing in my friend’s blood after he committed suicide.”

All are tragic.

“And we wonder why when they get to school, they act out,” Bates said. “When we were growing up, you couldn’t talk about mental health. That was considered weak. But now, the way I am now, I think it’s weak if you don’t. But it’s something that Black men really don’t do, and I’m still working on some of the Black brothers out here.”

Love, Hope & Healing is a work in progress. “If I’m going to try to help these kids, and I send them back home into a toxic relationship, that means when they come back tomorrow, I’ve got to try to break the cycle again,” Bates said.

Trauma is passed from generation to generation. “So, we thought, ‘Why not back up a generation and help the parents?’ We put every parent who comes into our program in a WhatsApp group where we keep parents up-to-date on what we’re doing. We also encourage parents to share. We ask, ‘Did anybody get a promotion today?’ Or, ‘In one word, tell us how you’re feeling?’ We have over 93 parents in our group now.”

And the kids notice, Bates said. “When they see that the parents are buying in, the parents are showing up, they say, ‘Oh, wow, you got my mom involved.’”

The couple came up with a request. They asked parents to listen to their kids uninterrupted for 10 minutes every day. “We started getting feedback from parents like, ‘I’ve never had my kids come home and just want to sit down and talk to me.’ And one parent said, ‘My daughter came home and gave me a hug and told me she loved me, and I give all credit to y’all.’”  

Skills trades and summer camp

Bates knew from experience that the main reason kids were ending up in jail was a lack of opportunities for gainful employment.

But not all teens are college material, and college is expensive. Bates said the answer lay in promoting the skills trades and making it easier for kids to access that training.  “We needed to get them hands-on experience. I went to Palm Beach State College, and I explained to them what I was trying to do, and they took over the conversation. Right then and there, Love Hope & Healing started to take off.”

One of the first programs was summer camp, which has two parts. This first is “a summit of skilled trades and career exploration” in partnership with PBSC, Bates said. In part two, kids also learn financial literacy, nutrition, public speaking, proper table etiquette, and communication, “skills you need to be a successful adult in this world, we give it to them in that second half.”

In 2025, the organization added an overnight experience at Keiser University. “The kids got to stay in the dorms, they learned how to navigate the college campus.” It gave them a taste of responsibility, Donte said.

“This fulfills Yolanda and me so much to where sometimes we get emotional,” Donte Bates said. “We’re not doing it for recognition, but just to know it helps. Today, Love, Hope & Healing has grown into a local staple in this community. We’re out here doing the work, boots on the ground, and we came out of nowhere.”

Second annual “Stop Throwing Rocks at the Chain Gang” Youth Summit

When: 10 am to 4 pm Saturday, May 2

Where: Gaines Park and Community Center, 1501 N. Australian Ave., West Palm Beach

What: Two panel discussions on community issues including crime and gun violence, plus meet your community leaders, and enjoy games, food and music.

Who: Yolanda Bates: 561-315-2528; Donte Bates: 561-255-8890; Love, Hope & Healing Inc.