PROFILES IN CHARACTER

BY JEB BUSH AND BRIAN YABLONSKI

In addition, the authors tell the stories of 14 real-life profiles in character - individuals who demonstrate some particular virtue as well as how that virtue works to reverse the cultural indicators. These profiles include Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Colonel George Day, Florida Gator football star Lawrence Wright, former Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, Volusia County schoolteacher Janet Campbell Gray,  Tampa General Hospital kitchen worker Delwyn Collins, and Safe Harbor Boys Home Doug Smith.

 What happens when we start taking less responsibility in our lives and allow government to fill the void left by the breakdown of families and communities? An unprecedented cultural decline in Florida marked by astronomical crime rates, an increase in juvenile offenders, tens of thousands of out-of-wedlock births,

Child poverty, a failing public education system, divorce and more, much more, government. Now is the time for the rebirth of character and virtue in Florida. We need to recapture the spirit of self-government We must follow the lead of the profiles in character.

Doug Smith:

Building Men of Integrity on the River

Jacksonville, Florida

In many of our profile stories, we have heard "character" defined as making the right choices in life. In Jacksonville, there is a program called Safe Harbor Boys Home whose motto is: "Learning to choose the right course for life." It is run by a man named Doug Smith and his wife, Robbie. 

Smith's own life story is one of destitution and recovery. In a most unlikely scenario, Smith now finds himself living a life on the water, teaching character to many of our modern day Huckleberry Finns. Today, he can boast of a success rate with these boys of better than 90 percent. Strict discipline and an understanding of the virtue of personal responsibility has made all the difference in the lives of these young men. Where others have failed, Doug Smith continues to succeed.

At the age of twelve, Doug Smith was homeless and roaming the riverfront of Jacksonville. He was without direction, purpose or supervision.

When Smith was two years old, his father died in a car accident and his mother remarried a man who Smith says was an abusive schizophrenic.

At home, Smith would receive whippings every day-mostly because he could not read. He suffered from dyslexia. When his stepfather asked him to read something and he couldn't, the beatings would commence.

One day Smith just left. Living underneath the Trout River Bridge, he would work with local shrimpers, who paid him one pound of shrimp a day.

He would then take the shrimp to a seafood restaurant and trade it in for a meal. At night under the bridge, he would sleep with a stray dog, a German shepherd he befriended.

But Smith was able to put his life back together. He says today, "The past is the past. If you worry about it, you are a slave to it." Soon after the attempted suicide, with the help of some of his old bosses, the Seafarer's International Union offered Smith a scholarship to put him through a maritime academy, the Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship, in Piney Point, Maryland. The union was even willing to pay for his clothes. After this schooling and working at sea for a number of years as a merchant marine, Smith returned to Jacksonville to work in the shipyards.

It was during this time that he met his wife of twenty two years, Robbie,,,,, who turned out to be a significant stabilizing influence in his life. Together, they found success in a machine shop Smith opened in Daytona Beach. He made good money by making parts for the federal government. But the daily stresses of running a business of 150 employees became too much for Smith. He sold the shop for a large sum of money in 1982 and hit early retirement to spend more time with his wife relaxing on a boat they had purchased on the St. John's River.

The retirement would be short-lived. In that same year, a federal judge in Jacksonville, who knew Smith had volunteered to help the Sea Scouts, contacted him to request that he care for two delinquent kids on an interim basis for approximately three months. The children had committed crimes and were in need of stable housing.

At first, he did not want to take on this responsibility and was bitter about being asked. For Smith, it meant reliving all the bad memories he had of his youth in the streets escaping a broken home. Said Smith, "The street is a very ugly place and you forget a lot of things; you have to." But Smith's own sense of responsibility took over. He and Robbie reluctantly accepted the challenge on the grounds that discipline, responsibility and Christian faith would be the cornerstone of this short-term foster care. More than one decade and 140 children later, these are still the principles guiding Safe Harbor Boys Home.

The success of Safe Harbor has been hard earned. Initially, in the 1980s the Smiths collaborated with the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Although funding was available through the department, the Smiths ceased their affiliation with the governmental agency when they learned that enormous strings were attached to the funding. Smith says that HRS required them to have a smoking section for children and that fire inspections by the Coast Guard were not acceptable for the department. Furthermore, HRS would not permit the Smiths to condemn homosexuality among the boys. Faced with continual paperwork and unreasonable regulations, the Smiths decided to completely forgo state grants and strike out on their own. Their funding was revoked and their license pulled. But Safe Harbor soon found alternative licensing through the Florida Association of Christian Child Care Agencies.

Today, the program is economically self-sufficient and the Smiths direct Safe Harbor in a volunteer capacity. Funding comes from private donations including individual contributions, churches, Sunday school classes, civic and social clubs. No city, state or federal dollars are received. And ironically, the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services recently petitioned the state to have Safe Harbor assist in an adoption program because Smith has had a higher success rate than the state-run delinquency programs. 

Doug Smith's Safe Harbor program cares for approximately twelve troubled boys at any one time. The boys, ages fifteen to seventeen, come to him from broken homes and many are usually carrying juvenile criminal records with them. These boys are tough. Many did drugs. Some are victims of incest. One tried to kill his own parents by running them over in his car when he was just eleven years old. The boys are usually referred to Safe Harbor by courts, agencies, churches or private homes. They stay for an average of eighteen months and then either return home to their families or set out on their own to get an education or find work. Many of the young men are victims of abuse and neglect. For these boys, there just aren't any families to return to.

The Safe Harbor "home" a three-story, renovated vessel called The Spike donated by the U.S. Coast Guard. Many other smaller vessels have been donated as well. It is on these vessels that the boys learn about the water, marine life, boating, carpentry and fishing. The water is a calming agent for these rowdy young men.

But it is not only the river life that makes Safe Harbor unique. It is also the way Smith is able to teach the boys responsibility through discipline that is important. There is a point system that is merit based. Smith believes it is this reward system that teaches them self- and how to make the right decisions. When a boy comes to Safe Harbor, he has no points, no privileges whatsoever. He cannot talk to friends; he cannot wear whatever clothes he likes. He is dressed in a uniform and then assigned chores. Everyone has a job that is essential to the welfare of all, whether it is cooking or cleaning or repairing the many boats. A ledger is kept that logs in positive acts by the boys. As months go by and responsibilities increase, a boy can build up his points and redeem them for certain privileges, such as going to the movies or out on a date or wearing casual clothing. The boys keep their own cards that list positive points and negative points.

The average workday for these boys begins at 6:00 A.M. Schooling takes place at each boy's own pace, but all are required to earn their high school equivalency diplomas while on board. The education component is provided by Robbie Smith and volunteers in a home-schooling atmosphere. Bible study is also a constant, as is community service. Every day the boys are voluntarily instructed from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible.

When the boys leave Safe Harbor for good, Smith hopes they will leave with one thing: integrity. He advises the young people, "Money will come and go but they can't take your integrity away from you. As long as you have your integrity, you can always make money." Smith has chosen to use the river and responsibility to build integrity in these young men, to teach them the lesson in character that he never had as a boy. Even today, it is an unusual situation for Smith. "I'm just an engineer who doesn't know a whole lot about kids. I guess I am the least likely person in the world to do this sort of thing." But that might just be the reason he has been so successful.

Mailing Address:

Safe Harbor Boys Home
4772 Safe Harbor Way
Jacksonville Fl 32226

TELEPHONE: (904) 757-7918 or Fax (904) 757-2504