MEMPHIS, Tenn. — We first introduced you to Machelle Pugh about a year ago when she opened the Christopher Pugh Center. The center was created in honor of her son, Christopher A. Pugh II, after he was killed due to senseless gun violence.
“Instead of us meeting continuously, let’s move.” Pugh said. “We are being intentional about the services at this center,” she said.
The men’s center helps connect veterans, homeless men, men coming out of incarceration, and others to resources that help re-establish themselves back into the community. Some of those resources include free suits and shirts, mental health and peer support, financial literacy education, and job placement services.
In a way, she lost one son but gained so many more in the one year the center has been open.
“I put her in my mother shoes, what if it were me? So, I decided to tag along with her. Help her out, and she helps me out a lot,” Mentee Mortez Yancy said.
Yancy says he first found out about the men’s center during a school outreach visit to Northeast Prep Academy.
“I was one of the students my mom used to call a class clown. I would try to get people’s attention and I was failing bad. But when Mr. Jared and Ms. Pugh showed up it seems like it all changed within a week,” Yancy said.
Yancy says he’s even fought thoughts of suicide in the past.
“The one man I can say I can open up to is Jabarre Jarrett. When I opened up to him, he gave me the look like it was time for him to step in and provide more father duties to a child that’s not even his,” Yancy said.
Since then, he says he’s found a second home, support system, and in his own words a second mother, with the team at the Christopher Pugh Center.
“Being able to touch and talk to him every day and lead and guide him I’ve just seen the changes that came about,” Mentor Jabarre Jarrett said.
The organization is excited to be hosting it’s first ever Bowties and Blazers fashion show Saturday June 17th. It’ll be held at the Collage Dance Center from 11:30a to 2p. All money raised for the event goes back into helping more midsouth men in need.
“It’s important to me, It’s personal to me. I lost my son to gun violence, but I’ve got an opportunity to pour into other boys and men in the community,” Pugh said.