A South Florida nonprofit that works with young people says they were hit by hate after someone vandalized their van. NBC6’s Niko Clemmons reports
A South Florida nonprofit that works with young people says they were hit by hate after someone vandalized their van – a crime that was caught on surveillance camera.
Joab Dumornay is the community outreach director for Miami Youth For Christ, a nonprofit that works with thousands of young people in both Miami-Dade and Broward counties. He said on late Monday night, someone walked around their van and tried to break all of the windows.
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“He circled around the van and started smashing it,” Dumornay said.
Most of the windows have cracks, but one of the back windows is gone.
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“All we do is love the kids and try to help them, and it seems someone put in their heart to target us,” Dumornay said.
Dumornay says they park their van outside Vive City Chapel in North Miami. The church is a safe place for their students to do their homework after school and stay off the streets. They use the van to pick up students from school, bring them to church and take many of them home, but right now, they can't.
“This is really pivotal to us,” Dumornay said.
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They now have to pay for a school bus to drop students off, which also hurts them financially. Dumornay says this is a minor setback, but he knows they have to keep going for each and every young person.
“I'm a believer that if you're doing something good you're going to have some adversity and we know we're doing good work and it's about our students and it's always going to be pushback, but the same way I try to teach my kids to be resilient, we have to be resilient too,” Dumornay said.
He has a message for the person responsible.
“If you're doing that you probably have real issues you're crying out for, you're invited here on Sundays at Vive City Chapel," Dumornay said. "If you're a student, I'll forgive and you can come get connected and see if we have love for everybody."
Dumornay says police came out and made a report. NBC6 reached out to Miami-Dade Police to see where they are in their investigation.
You can help the nonprofit and donate through this link.
