For years, Troy Truly’s home was the place where his children’s friends would hangout.

But it wasn’t until later that he came to realize his home could be a place where troubled young people could find comfort and help to turn their lives around.

His efforts were recognized Jan. 15, when he received the community service award from the Omicron Rho Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha at the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast.

A graduate of Warren Central High School and Army veteran with a degree from Flag Chapel Bible College in Clinton, Truly was an assistant minister at Triumph MB Church in the Kings community when he received the inspiration to offer his home to help other children.

But in the beginning, it was just a place for kids to hang out.

“We started from just a lot of children coming over to our home, and it was like a nest for children to hang out with our kids. It quickly just became just a way of life for us, never paying attention to what was going on.

“The Lord just one day revealed some things to us about how we were attracted to helping our youth.”

That inspiration came during a meeting at the Warren County Youth Court, where County Judge John Price talked about opportunities he would like to see to help the youth in the community.

“My wife and I talked about putting together a program, and from there, it took off.” Truly said. “We started housing young people who were troubled in their homes or in the community or in school or incarcerated at the (youth) detention center.

“We started out with one young man and it grew to two, and from there it just spun off to working in the community with the parents.”

The Trulys started teaching fatherhood classes at the Vicksburg Family Development Center and working with the Warren-Washington-Issaquena-Sharkey Community Action Agency, a private non-profit organization community service organization.

“The Lord had us involved; we saw the need. Our children were graduating, and we just started focusing on giving back to the community.”

He organized Truly Ministries, a faith-based, nonprofit organization to provide programs for youth. He and his wife began accepting children into their home in 2007, but are no longer keeping children at their home. The future plan is to have a transitional home for children.

While the program provides mentoring for the children, Truly said the ministry tries to expose the children to things they might not become acquainted with.

“We take them outside of their norm by exposing them to other environments, other cultures, giving them a glimpse of what life can be, but also giving hands-on opportunities to see different things that they probably haven’t seen otherwise.”

The ministry partners with organizations like the CAP Center, which allows the children to share different opportunities to go to places like NFL football games and NBA basketball games.

“Now, we’re getting ready to send some of the children off to different universities for robotics programs.

“We go to museums. We’ve taken them to Memphis (Tenn.) to the Martin Luther King museum; we’ll be going to the museums in Jackson, and they’ve been to the museum in Natchez to study history.”

The tours and museum visits, Truly said, help to expand the children’s thinking with things they don’t normally see in their history or science books.

The young people, he said, love the trips.

He said program alumni return to visit him and his wife, “Whether it’s the birth of their child or being married; some (alumni) are doctors who live in other cities and states.

“They come back to speak to the youth we’re working with now, they come back to help us or update us with their progression. That’s the benefit of just seeing grown and becoming productive citizens. We also hire them as mentors in the summer.”

He recalled a conversation with a student who was graduating high school, was in Junior ROTC and was going into the Army after graduation.

“She said, ‘My grandmother brought me to you and talked to me and shared your story with me; you inspired me.’ That’s what’s inspiring to me about our young people. They want someone to, No. 1, be honest with them, listen to them and just give them an opportunity to work it out.”

Truly said the motto of the ministry is “Where you matter, no matter what.”

The motto is based on the belief that if people come to a place where they’re not condemned, treated as outcasts and just given the opportunity to talk out, to work out, and become what God has created them to be, they can succeed.

“That is what we believe in, what we operate under,” he said.

“Troubled youth in crisis, parents screaming saying ‘help.’ We work with the parents to help reinforce some things they may be weak in; help them with those tools in order to help the two work better together, the parent and child or children.”

The children who stay with the Trulys follow a schedule that gets them ready for school and getting them to tutoring programs after school, “And allowing them to be children, allowing them to be free to be children. Cultivating their thinking and building leadership and allowing it to come forward.”

Besides the youth they work with at home, Truly Ministries also helps with reading and mentoring programs at Beechwood and Sherman Avenue Elementary schools and Vicksburg Junior High School.

He said his goal is to continue to develop those two programs and get the parents involved in the programs. He also wants to develop a home for troubled youth where the ministry can expand to help other young people and develop a program that can grow and network with other agencies.

“We don’t have to know how to do everything, but together, we can help,” he said.

Concerning his award, “I would like to thank the Omicron Rho Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha for the award and for selecting me.

“I don’t take the award lightly, because it’s the need; the community really needs to come together in order to be successful. Success comes not from us wanting to be outside and first, but us just being together and the person in need is helped.”