Project B.U.I.L.D.

“God pulled him out of a rat-infested trailer with no floor, but I don’t think he has a rough path anymore,” says Marco Island resident Melissa Henderson about seven year old “RJ,” who’s been living with Melissa and her husband Al for just over a year.  Their home is the 21st foster care placement in RJ’s young life, and Melissa and Al are working hard to make it his last, hoping to finalize their adoption of him by the end of the year.  

RJ made his way into the Henderson’s life thanks to Project B.U.I.L.D., a small, Naples-based nonprofit that serves foster and homeless youth in Southwest Florida.  B.U.I.L.D. stands for “Building and uplifting individuals through learning and development,” and the driving force behind Project B.U.I.L.D is its founder and executive director, 35 year-old Aram Wheatly.

Wheatly, the only son of a single mom, had a strong family support system growing up on the Eastern shore of Maryland and in inner-city Atlanta, unlike most of the youth he now serves.   His grandfather and uncle stepped in as the father figures in his life as his mom worked multiple jobs, which forced the family to move frequently for better pay.  He attended 12 different schools in Atlanta alone.   

“I would say for the average human being, that would probably hurt them,” Wheatly says.  “But I felt like it helped me because I’m never scared to meet people and talk to them.   The amount of diversity I encountered in my life really helped me.”

Wheatly founded Project B.U.I.L.D. in 2020, after working for more than 15 years at several nonprofits aligned with Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice, most recently at AMI Kids.   At AMI Kids Big Cypress, he met his mentor Marvin Ferrell, and the two worked together to create Project B.U.I.L.D. after a stint together at AMI Kids Manatee.  Sadly, Ferrell died of cancer at age 49 on Memorial Day, 2020, just after Project B.U.I.L.D. secured its official nonprofit status.   Ferrell’s death only strengthened Wheatly’s determination.   “It made me make sure that I did it right,” he says.   “I had to lock in, no matter what, for Marvin.”

At any given time, Project B.U.I.L.D. is working with about eight foster youth who ebb and flow through their programs as they move into new foster home placements.    Wheatly and his staff of eight, with help from volunteers, provide a full slate of mentoring and instructional services to the foster kids, from financial literacy and computer training to social skills and resume building.   They have a full woodworking shop where older teens learn carpentry skills for job placement at construction sites. 

According to the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau, there are nearly 400,000 children and youth currently in foster care, with roughly 80 percent struggling with significant mental health issues.  Most of them bounce from house to house for years, and that parentless, nomadic lifestyle can create serious behavioral issues, particularly when dealing with adults.  

“These kids are not being raised right,” Wheatly says.  “They really don’t know right from wrong.”

That was certainly the case with RJ.  The first time Melissa Henderson met him was in July, 2022 while she was mentoring a young woman at Project B.U.I.L.D.’s Naples headquarters.   RJ, who was six at the time, had just been released from his 20th foster placement and was likely to be placed in a therapeutic group home next.   Wheatly told Henderson he had concerns about RJ staying in the home and worried that his next stop after that would be an institution.   His history of frequent, violent outbursts meant many of his caregivers would release him from their homes after only one night.

“It was bad,” Henderson says.  “His violence and cursing came from a place where he was severely traumatized by a family member.”

Nonetheless, it was “love at first sight” the first time she met RJ.   “He wouldn’t talk to me at first,” she says.  “I came back a few days later and he remembered me and asked me to play a videogame with him.”   The two grew closer over the summer, and on August 24, 2022, he moved in with the Hendersons, who had married about six months before and hadn’t planned to have kids together, according to Melissa.

Now, just over a year together, RJ and the Hendersons are thriving in their new relationship.   “RJ is just amazing,” Melissa says.  “We know all our neighbors because of him.  He loves everyone.  He’s so passionate about the people that he comes in contact with and people just want to be part of that, I guess.  My husband and I are introverts in a way, so we’re really grateful for him.   He’s teaching us a lot.”

RJ now has a full and productive life, attending Shadowlawn Elementary School in Naples, learning tennis at the Y and playing football and soccer, the kind of normal kid stuff that would have never factored into his previous life.   Henderson says RJ loves having dinner at Island Country Club, where they celebrated his one-year anniversary with them this August.   

“He was afraid of books when he first came to our house, for some reason,” Henderson says.  “But now he’s reading and doing great in the second grade.”

Nonetheless, Henderson says she and Al continue to work with RJ on anger management and, more pointedly, the fear that still lingers from his time in foster care.   “This is a child who has nightmares that the man who abused him for a portion of his life is coming to beat him.  We’re trying to change that mindset, and all the support we get from this community is a big help there.   It has taken a village to raise this child.   A huge village.  And most of that village is on Marco Island.”

Aram Wheatly at Project B.U.I.L.D. never doubted the Henderson’s commitment to giving RJ the life he deserves.   “They’re just great people,” he says.  “They went through hell when they got him, but they didn’t quit.   They stuck with it.   Now he’s living a beautiful life.   I’m so happy for him.  It’s so cool!”

“We owe everything to Project B.U.I.L.D.,” Henderson says.  “Those people are truly wonderful, caring people.   They offer kids the opportunity to have some sense of normalcy in their lives when they’re really not in a normal situation at all.  I can’t emphasize enough to people that if they have the time and resources to be foster parents, that they give it a second thought, because there are a lot of kids out there who really need it.   And if people have the resources to give to a foundation, Project B.U.I.L.D. is a great one to help with.”

I suppose most of us think we’re pretty decent people, or at least not “bad” people, per se.   And I think that’s generally true... that the vast majority of us want to do the right thing and help others when they see someone who needs it.  But how willing are we to literally change the course of our lives in so fundamental way to help someone, the way the Hendersons have?   I really can’t answer that question, except to say that RJ has been given a new life in a loving family, something that he never could have dreamed of.   And that’s a pretty rare gift.