We Rise Executive Director Helping Homeless in Syracuse We Rise Executive Director Helping Homeless in Syracuse

We Rise Above the Streets, better known in Syracuse and just, we rise, is a non-profit charity working to help those in need. Executive Director Al-Amin Muhamed says since the pandemic, Syracuse has become the 4th poorest city in the United States.

Al-Amin Muhamed: “So the reason I’m out here to make sure that everybody don’t pay attention to that number. They just come out here and grab some hot food, grab some good items with numbered tags on them and most importantly grab some love and compassion and a lot of hugs and smiles before they leave.”)

*”Every Saturday We Rise comes right here to Billings Park in Syracuse, New York to help those in need. But founder Al-Amin Muhamed’s story goes a lot further than volunteer work in upstate New York.*

Muhamed: “I started off in chicago I got involved with a lot of gang activity, I was one of (the most) notorious drug dealers, and I ended up losing a lot because I was in prison, so when I got out I became homeless.”

Muhamed was homeless for 10 years until he met one person who changed his life in Atlanta’s Center for Self Sufficiency.

Muhamed: “It was Mr. Santos, he from Atlanta, it was an agency called ACSS. He looked at me in my eye, told me loved me, saw greatness in me and he knew one day I was gonna help a lot of people because I had a powerful story. That motivated me when he hugged me, I went out to the world and that’s what I did, I went out to strive for greatness.”

Muhamed did exactly what he set out to do and now assists those in Syracuse dealing with a specific type of pain.

Muhamed: “When somebody’s in the street hungry, there’s a pain that me now and you and anybody who’s living a regular productive life every day, they never experienced that pain. The pain is a sharp pain that the homeless community deal with. A sharp, sharp, painful pain ‘cause they’re hungry.”

Local students often volunteer with We Rise. Muhamed makes sure to share his story with them each and every time.

Muhamed: “Today I saw something special today. You know every Saturday I see a different light, different energy. It really put a smile on my face. It makes me sleep good especially a person who been homeless for ten years like myself. I know I look good, y’all look like ‘damn this dude look good as hell, he was homeless?’ Yeah, I was homeless for ten years, chronically homeless. Before I was homeless I made a lot of bad decisions in my life. Sold drugs, raised on the south side of Chicago, in and out of prison. And a lot of people gave up on me. It was one person who had believed in me. One person that believed in me. He was a social worker, right, he was like a father, he was like a mentor. He told me several words that changed my life and got me here where I’m at right now. He told me, ‘I see greatness in you and one day you gonna help a lot of people, never give up, never give up, continue to strive for greatness, follow your dreams, don’t let nobody tell you that you can’t accomplish nothing.’ He told me them words, I went out to the world and that’s what I did, I strived for greatness.”

Reporting from Syracuse, and now striving a little bit more for greatness, Sam Schappell, N-C-C News.