PORT ST. LUCIE PEOPLE
than 263 youth have participated in E.N.D. It! programs.
On Friday nights twice a month, she and Strather facilitate a
group called CHILL (Choosing How I Live Life) that meets
on the campus of Calvary Compassion Church at the former
Orange Blossom Mall in Fort Pierce.
“We have dinner and play team-building activities,” she
said. “Then we split into male and female groups for discussions
on life lessons. We are now discussing teens and parents.
We have done abstinence and the guys have discussed manhood.
My husband leads the guys group and I lead the girls.
We have other mentors who help facilitate the discussions.”
In 2016, the teens took on teen dating violence. With their
input, DuPree put together the drama, A Broken Chain, which
deals with this issue. It was performed at the Port St. Lucie
Community Center and in Martin County for the Tykes to
Teens group. Other teen topics such as bullying, purity, peer
pressure and gang violence have been the subjects of skits.
And this year, the focus turned to human trafficking, one of
the most lucrative crimes in the United States.
“The teens feel really connected with this topic,” she said.
“I worked with the youth to make them a part of the creative
process. I used ideas and lines they suggested, then I put the
final script together for Daddy.”
To date, more than 700 people have seen Daddy and DuPree
is quick to credit those who have helped bring this drama to
the public.
“We have had so many adults and groups help us with
this. The Sunrise Theatre and the City of Fort Pierce were so
gracious in letting us stage Daddy there,” she said. The exposure,
hopefully, will help the organization garner some funds
necessary for their next project.
“These teens feel strongly about human trafficking,” Du-
Pree said. “They want to take this production on the road to
warn their peers about the dangers of trafficking. They see it
as a preventive effort — educating their peers on how easy it
is to be lured.”
Florida is third in the nation in human trafficking crimes
(according to the National Human Trafficking Resource
Center) and the teens are trying to raise funds to take their
show on the road over the summer to get the message out to
teens throughout Florida. Here is where the business degree
DuPree earned will get a workout — organizing a traveling
show. Daddy is a series of vignettes that follows the story of
a middle-school girl who is courted by an older boy and directed
to a modeling agency set up to move young girls into
sex trafficking.
No longer sitting at home completing her solitary coding
work, DuPree seems joyful and content in her new job
of guiding youth through their mission of awareness and
prevention. The teens have learned stage presence and teamwork
through this production, with more lessons to come as
they take to the road with DuPree at the helm.
If you are interested in helping the teens raise funds for
their trip to spread their message of awareness across Florida
this summer, send an email to enditcorp@gmail.com or call
924-0470. E
DuPree discusses some changes to a scene in Daddy with actors Carlos Binder, left, Da’Shon Lewis and Myles Tullis prior to a recent performance in the
Black Box of the Sunrise Theatre in Downtown Fort Pierce.
56 Port St. Lucie Magazine
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