One neighborhood at a time, these Rock Hill men aim to ‘pick up’ area communities
Two men lean over a black chain-linked fence, looking across a place that reminds them of home.
It’s a warm, foggy Thursday morning, and Rock Hill natives and lifelong friends Michael Burris and William “Q-Rock” Cureton are looking over Friedheim Park in Rock Hill. Memories of a childhood spent in this Sunset Park community easily pass through the two men, as if they are scraping their knees on the basketball court, or playing softball on the park’s field, or convincing their mothers they don’t need to come home for lunch and instead can keep running around with their friends until the sun goes down.
When Burris and Cureton were young, parks like the one in this Sunset Park community were where kids grew up together, they said. Parks were where the souls of Rock Hill’s communities, particularly among the neighborhood’s young people, were nurtured, nourished and tested.
“One thing we have to learn how to do is get our young people back focused on living with each other, knowing each other,” Burris said. “And that way they’re not so quick to hurt each other.”
Burris and Cureton spend a lot of time in parks and neighborhoods.
But instead of playing sports or just passing time, they’re there to clean those places up.
A few years ago, the two began a group called “Men on a Mission.” And starting last March, they and several Rock Hill leaders and volunteers have gone from neighborhood to neighborhood, park to park, to pick up trash.
The group’s purpose is astonishingly simple — and even a bit radical: Small actions, like cleaning up and making a neighborhood look better, yield real community impact.
“We’re willing to go anywhere to show people what we’re doing, so we all can take ownership in our community and beautify it, make it look better,” Burris said. “One thing that my grandmother always taught us: She would plant flowers in the yard and say, ‘You beautify your area, and you’ll take ownership of that.’ And you came through knowing, ‘This is yours.’
“We got a lot of work to do, not only to pick the paper up, but to pick the people up.”
One Rock Hill neighborhood at a time
On Saturday morning from 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the group is meeting again for a Community Cleanup, this time at Armory Park.
That day will be the seventh monthly Community Cleanup Burris and Cureton have held since starting Men on a Mission. At each event, they spend an hour or two cleaning up, and afterward, they grill hot dogs, serve Gatorade and other refreshments, and share “life-changing testimonials from people in your neighborhood.”
“We’re trying to fix this one community at a time,” Cureton said. “One neighborhood at a time.”
All volunteers are welcome.
The Rock Hill High School girls’ basketball team has come. The Northwestern High football team has helped too. Elected officials, school district employees, faith leaders, youth football coaches — they’ve all been to this event.
“To get more people to buy in, and to keep their own neighborhood clean, that’s the overall goal,” said Derrick Lindsay, a Rock Hill city councilman representing Ward 5 and a regular at these community events. “And then (Burris and Cureton) did an overlay of that with Men on a Mission, where they clean the neighborhood up and afterward cook hot dogs, serve chips and drinks, things like that.
“And then we give some guys that have gotten in trouble or have success stories throughout the neighborhood time to talk to the kids and say, ‘You don’t have to get in trouble, you don’t have to go down this road. There is a different way, a different path.’”
There is hope
On that Thursday, a few hours after spending a while at Sunset Park, Burris and Cureton drove about a mile east to Moore Street Park (off Green Street). There, they shot hoops and reminisced some more.
Burris then told one last story: A few months ago, while cleaning up and later spending the afternoon at Moore Street Park at a Community Cleanup, Burris was asked an earnest question by a young boy.
“Do you own this park?” the kid asked.
Burris laughed and responded that the community — that you and I and everyone there — owned this park.
“So the kid began picking up paper and everything there,” Burris said, chuckling, ”because he started caring for it like it was his own.”
And that is exactly the message Men on a Mission has been trying to get across: Cleaning up where you live and taking care of what’s yours — parks, neighborhoods, communities and more — it’s all one in the same.
“(Some) kids look at where they live and think that there is no hope for tomorrow,” Cureton said. “And Men on a Mission is going in and telling them that there is hope. There is hope.”
Men on a Mission Community Cleanup
What? Community Cleanup and then life-changing testimonials
When? Saturday morning (Oct. 23) from 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where? Armory Park in Rock Hill (714 S Confederate Avenue)
This story was originally published October 21, 2021 at 10:52 AM.
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