Geronimo Aguilar: Transformation of the ROC
Ever since Pastor Geronimo Aguilar’s Richmond Outreach Center started, juvenile delinquencies, school suspensions and expulsions have greatly decreased. This is because the ROC works with the Richmond Police Department, various public schools in Richmond, and also with the Washington-based Center for Neighborhood Enterprise when it comes to reducing street and juvenile violence, especially in George Wythe High School.
Ten of the ROC staff volunteer themselves to help the school’s most difficult-to-handle students in finishing their homework, holding mediations, doing home visits to the students and their corresponding parents, and preventing fights among the students. This is why the Richmond Police Department totally pushes for and supports Pastor Geronimo Aguilar in this program of the ROC. With that, the police department gladly came up with the program’s funding.
A few years ago, Pastor Geronimo Aguilar found a perfect forty-five thousand square foot facility in the Northern part of Richmond. Using the funds of the Richmond Outreach Center Pastor G, which is Pastor Geronimo Aguilar famous nickname, bought the facility and transformed it into a school for training people for urban ministry. Many come and stay for several days to participate in the ROC’s boot camps, while some enroll in the school itself and stay for over nine months.