Photo by August Kryger / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Jean Farthing holds Moochie and Chip, two formerly stray cats that she rescued and adopted. Ms. Farthing attended the 12-week Step Up to Leadership Class offered by the Community Action Partnership. She said the class helped her decide to work on developing a better citywide system to help stray cats find homes. ‘I hope to be a kind of intermediary between people and cats,’ she said.

About a year ago, Roy Wedlow, a burly city police officer, listened to sob stories from tainted men at a prison re-entry forum.

One by one, former inmates took the stage and enumerated the difficulties in being reaccepted by society. It was then that Mr. Wedlow scratched two words onto a piece of paper: preventive entry.

That day at the Bartlett Center in St. Joseph’s Midtown, Mr. Wedlow conceived a program that would target at-risk youth. The idea is to prevent them from entering the penal system in the first place.

Through mentoring and instilling life skills, the opportunity-giving program would make “law-abiding citizens instead of kids on the corner selling dope.”

A year later, his idea is still in the embryonic stage. Mr. Wedlow is not sure about cost, community interest or federal money available. But beginning today, he’s officially more ready to vie for it at the local level.

For the fourth year, the Community Action Partnership of Greater St. Joseph has graduated a class of community-minded residents.

Over the last three months, the students learned public speaking, how to run a meeting, how to apply for grants and even how to run a nonprofit agency. The 13 graduating students are now eligible for mini-grants for their chosen cause.

Organizers said the training is aimed at unleashing “the instinct to do what is good for the community” like serve on local community boards or lobby for change.

To Jean Farthing, a St. Joseph native who recently returned from California, that instinct is toward animals in St. Joseph — specifically strays. She’s recently began researching city ordinances to see if there are potential changes regarding strays.

Officials specifically targeted low-income residents to attend. About half the class took advantage of $20 stipends to cover any barriers toward attending, such as transportation and child care.

“It’s so easy to sit on the porch and complain,” said Les Currie, one of the class facilitators. “All we ever asked for was commitment to the community and self — and that’s pretty much what we’ve got with this group.”

Mr. Wedlow and Ms. Farthing will be part of the graduation ceremony today, where the 13 graduates will speak about their community passions and how they plan to apply them. The ceremony begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Corby Building, 422 Felix St.

Ahmad Safi can be reached

at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.