Back in time: Project Unity Youth Center made impact

Courtesy of The Canton-Madison County Historical Society

In 1980, a Canton program was working to give troubled young people a second chance  - and 46 years later, its home on South Union Street still bears the Project Unity name.

The Project Unity Youth Center opened on February 1, 1980, under the leadership of Walter Jones, head of Madison County’s juvenile services program. By August 1980, some 45 young people - 33 of them juvenile offenders - had already gone through the program.

Jones and Dorothy Mabry, head of the Madison County Volunteer Division, were described as the two main forces behind Project Unity.

Their goal was to reach young offenders early and address the circumstances contributing to their problems rather than simply punish them.

The program included counseling, home visits, help finding employment and referrals to programs such as the Job Corps.

“I’ll make a home visit to assess the home environment and see what the problem is and then seek a solution,” Jones told the Madison County Herald.

Volunteers were central to the effort. Jimmy Mabry served as a volunteer, while Valerie Massey was the organization’s secretary.

Cleothus Cratin, soon to be ordained a minister and someone who had himself experienced both the juvenile system and jail, headed the Youth Enrichment Program.

In the 1980 photograph, the center operated from a modest house on South Union Street, identified by a large hand-painted sign carrying the words:
“FIGHTING TO SAVE CANTON YOUTH.”

Forty-six years later, the building is still standing. The accompanying photographs taken in August 2026 show the former youth center much as it appears today.

Weathered and partly overgrown, the building remains remarkably recognizable from the 1980 photograph - and a sign in the yard still carries the Project Unity name.

The old and new photographs offer a rare opportunity to see not only a surviving Canton building, but a physical reminder of the people who worked there nearly half a century ago: Walter Jones, Dorothy Mabry, Jimmy Mabry, Valerie Massey and Cleothus Cratin, and their effort to provide another path for Canton’s young people.

Historic photographs and information: Madison County Herald, August 14, 1980. Contemporary photographs: August 2026 by Canton-Madison County Historical Society President John J. Kennedy.