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32-616: Miracle Park may refer to: Miracle Park (community) , a Floridian religious community for sex offenders Miracle Park, a facility for physically and mentally challenged children in Gardendale, Alabama Miracles Park, a park in Detroit, see The Miracles See also [ edit ] Miracle Beach Provincial Park , British Columbia Miracle Strip Amusement Park , Florida Miracle Strip at Pier Park , Florida Topics referred to by

64-494: A mother tongue consisted of 26.87%, Haitian Creole comprised 11.00%, and French made up 1.07% of the population. As of 2000, Belle Glade had the tenth highest percentage of Haitian residents in the United States, at 11.50% of the populace. It also had the sixtieth highest percentage of Cuban residents nationally, at 5.98% of the population. The cane sugar mill of the " Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative " (SCGC)

96-408: A family was $ 26,756. Males had a median income of $ 26,232 versus $ 21,410 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 11,159. About 28.5% of families and 32.9% of the population were below the poverty line , including 41.1% of those under age 18 and 21.4% of those age 65 or over. As of 2000, speakers of English as a first language accounted for 61.03% of all residents, while Spanish as

128-409: A fusion of personal interviews and texts written by the residents, with traditional Methodist hymns, lines from the sermons of Patti Auperlee, and original songs composed by Priscilla Holbrook. The central theme is whether there are limits to grace, whether or not sex offenders — all of them — can ever be forgiven. Except for the hymns, each line of the eighteen songs is taken from the transcript of

160-538: A population of 16,698, down from 17,467 in the 2010 census. Belle Glade (and the surrounding area) is sometimes referred to as "Muck City" due to the large quantity of muck , in which sugarcane grows, found in the area. Despite being located in the South Florida region of the state, Belle Glade is culturally more associated with the Florida Heartland . For a time during the early to mid 1980s,

192-482: A prominent role as a source of migrant agricultural labor. The final scenes of the crime novel Pretty Little Things by Jilliane Hoffman take place in a sugarcane plantation near Belle Glade. The high school football culture of Belle Glade is the subject of the non-fiction book, Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football's Forgotten Town by author Bryan Mealer. The psychedelic pop band of Montreal released

224-457: A statement by a Miracle Village resident, or from a sermon by Pastor Aupperlee. Belle Glade, Florida Belle Glade is a city in south-central Florida and it is the far western part of Palm Beach County, Florida , United States, on the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee . It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida . According to the 2020 U.S. Census , the city had

256-520: A week with the residents and in 2017 published 10 photographs, with brief commentary, in Politico magazine. Banished is a 15-minute video by reporter Aaron Thomas and produced by Journeyman.tv in 2013, which aired in 2014 on SBS Australia . It concludes with a focus on Pahokee's pastor Patti Auperlee, who has helped the sex offenders be accepted by the wider community. A New York Times "Op-Doc" (see Op-Ed ) video from May 21, 2013, focuses on

288-554: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Miracle Park (community) The complex of 54 duplexes and six family homes is operated by Matthew 25: Ministries , an organization with the stated goal of providing prison aftercare. The Executive Director in 2017 was Ted Rodarm, himself an ex-offender. In October 2010, the community included 66 registered sex offenders; by July 2013, there were 100; and by 2017, it held 120. The total population as of 2018, including family members,

320-464: Is like to be picked up at the prison gate and driven to Miracle Village, the book reproduces 11 handwritten statements by registrants describing their offenses, plus a Dear John letter from an offender's wife saying she wants a divorce. Of her work, Valiente said: "It is not just a documentary record of a shunned community, but an argument for understanding, rehabilitation, even forgiveness." Photographer Charles Ommanney lived at Miracle Village for

352-417: Is located at Belle Glade. During the crop season the factory employs 550 people. As of Feb. 2013, the official unemployment rate was about 15%; however, the town's mayor suggested the actual unemployment rate was closer to 40%. The number of jobs available locally dropped as local agriculture shifted from vegetables to sugarcane , a more highly mechanized crop. The United States Postal Service operates

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384-681: The Institute of Tropical Medicine , in Miami, hypothesized that AIDS in Belle Glade might be connected to poverty and poor living conditions in the city's "colored town," where many people diagnosed with the disease also lived. Their theory, along with the very high per capita AIDS rate in Belle Glade, brought notoriety to the town as the "AIDS capital of the world." Whiteside and MacLeod's theory turned out to be incorrect, but subsequent research conducted in Belle Glade shaped scientific knowledge about

416-612: The National Football League ". According to the United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 4.7 square miles (12 km ), of which 4.7 square miles (12 km ) are land and 0.21% is water. As of the 2020 United States census , there were 16,698 people, 6,324 households, and 4,052 families residing in the city. As of the 2010 United States census , there were 17,467 people, 5,832 households, and 3,879 families residing in

448-798: The Belle Glade Post Office. The Florida Department of Corrections operated the Glades Correctional Institution in an unincorporated area in Palm Beach County near Belle Glade. It was founded in 1932, employed about 350, had a capacity of 918 inmates and was scheduled for closure in December 2011. The Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail runs through Belle Glade. School District of Palm Beach County operates public schools. In CBS Reports' 1960 program Harvest of Shame , Belle Glade plays

480-570: The city had the highest rate of AIDS infection per capita (37 cases in a population of roughly 19,000) in the United States. According to the FBI , in 2003, the city had the second highest violent crime rate in the country at 298 per 10,000 residents. In 2010, the Palm Beach County sheriff's office estimated that half of the young men in Belle Glade between the ages of 18 and 25 had felony convictions. The Belle Glade or Okeechobee culture

512-415: The city. In 2000, 39.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.9% were married couples living together, 22.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.3% were non-families. 23.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.04 and the average family size was 3.62. In 2000,

544-503: The early 1980s, researchers began to notice a large number of people with AIDS in Belle Glade. The disease had first been identified by doctors in New York and California in 1981, and it was largely associated with communities of gay men in and around large cities. In Belle Glade, however, people with AIDS mainly identified as heterosexual, and around half were women. Some researchers, and notably Dr. Mark Whiteside and Dr. Carolyn MacLeod of

576-641: The elderly. Witherow was sued by the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and the Florida Equal Justice Center on behalf of some residents. In 2011, a federal judge found that Matthew 25 Ministries and Alston Management had violated the Federal Fair Housing Act . Miracle Village's relations with nearby Pahokee were initially difficult, but have improved considerably. The day Pat Powers, a resident and

608-404: The population was spread out, with 33.5% under the age of 18, 10.0% from 18 to 24, 27.1% from 25 to 44, 20.7% from 45 to 64, and 8.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 30 years. For every 100 females, there were 103.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.6 males. In 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $ 22,715, and the median income for

640-604: The problems of the residents, many of whom are interviewed. On January 24, 2018, the BBC released its 58-minute documentary Stacey Dooley Investigates: Second Chance Sex Offenders , whose topic is Florida's sex offender policies, the toughest in the nation. Reporter Stacey Dooley interviews some officials who are hostile to sex offenders and believe they can never be rehabilitated, such as Florida Senator Lauren Book and Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith. She concludes with Miracle Village. Season 11, Episode 6 “Pariahville” of

672-466: The same lot you see at the beginning of Harvest of Shame , waiting for buses to take them to the fields. The "loading ramp," as it's called, is a bleak, empty lot, surrounded by some small buildings with bars on the windows and a boarded up storefront. As of May 2014 the city has plans "to demolish the loading ramp and turn it into a park." The town is known for its football tradition, and together with nearby Pahokee has "sent at least 60 players to

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704-421: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Miracle Park . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Miracle_Park&oldid=1194560096 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

736-535: The storm killed 611 people in Belle Glade alone, and a total of over 1,800 statewide. Contemporary accounts stated that most of the dead were Black migrant farmworkers, a "large percentage" of whom were believed to be from the Bahamas . Belle Glade was rebuilt, and a large dike was erected to protect towns around the lake from storm-driven overflows. German prisoners of war were confined in camps located at Belle Glade and nearby Clewiston during World War II . In

768-647: The television series Criminal Minds takes place in a fictionalized version of Miracle Village called “Glenport Village”. A research team from the Life Jacket Theater Company visited Pahokee for a week in October 2015. Based on interviews, autobiographical statements, and court records the team collected, the Company presented America Is Hard to See in January and February 2018. The play is

800-614: The town in 2009. On assignment for the German magazine Süddeutsche Zeitung ( South German Times ), American photographer Noah Rabinowitz took a series of photos of Miracle Village. They were published in 2013, with a 4,000 word article in the magazine. In 2014, photographer Sofía Valiente, who lives in nearby Belle Glade , published a book with the simple title of Miracle Village . The unpaged book contains pictures of Miracle Village and its sex offender residents. Along with an introduction by resident Joseph Steinberg, describing what it

832-517: The transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through heterosexual sex. Today, the area around Lake Okeechobee is fertile and farming is an important industry. Sugar cane and vegetables are grown. Migrant farmworkers are an important part of the labor force. Belle Glade received national attention when a 1960 CBS television documentary, Harvest of Shame , graphically depicted the local migrant farmerworkers' daily existence and working conditions. Men and women still gather around 5 a.m. in

864-527: The village manager, first approached the City Council in nearby Pahokee, "We were the plague. They wanted to hang us. They wanted to knock the crap out of us and they had to give us a police escort to leave." The mayor in 2009, Wayne Whitaker, stated that he was unaware that offenders were being recruited to live there and that he believed having so many live together would be "very, very risky". National Public Radio 's All Things Considered covered

896-399: Was 200. It is the largest community of registered sex offenders in the United States. There are an additional 300 who have resided there but since moved on. An affiliated organization, Miracle Village Ministries, provides services including transportation to newly released prisoners. It describes itself on its website as "a faith-based prison aftercare ministry". Previously, the complex

928-405: Was an archaeological culture that extended around Lake Okeechobee and included the lower Kissimmee River valley. It existed from as early as 1000 BCE until about 1700 CE . The culture is named for the Belle Glade site, which was excavated in the mid-1930s as part of a Civil Works Administration project. The Belle Glade site included a midden and a burial mound . The town of Belle Glade

960-582: Was built at what is now Belle Glade in 1925. In 1926 the Florida East Coast Railway extended its system to Belle Glade, which helped the town's development. A powerful hurricane struck the area on September 16, 1928. The storm winds caused Lake Okeechobee to overflow its banks, inundating towns around the lake and causing widespread damage in Belle Glade. According to figures compiled by the Florida Department of Health,

992-801: Was founded during the Florida land boom of the 1920s . During that period, there were a series of efforts made to put in place drainage systems to reclaim dry land from the Everglades, including land around Lake Okeechobee . It was hoped that the reclaimed acreage could be put to better use, including agriculture. In 1921 the Florida legislature established an agricultural research station at Belle Glade to study methods of growing crops on reclaimed Everglades land. At that time, there were already 16 settlements on and around Lake Okeechobee, inhabited by around 2,000 people. A settlement, originally named Hillsboro,

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1024-466: Was known as Pelican Lake. It was built by U.S. Sugar in 1964 as housing for migrants working the sugar cane fields, now replaced by machinery. After working out a deal with Matthew 25 Ministries to lease the property, the owner, Alston Management Inc., informed residents with school-age children that they would have to leave or be evicted. Federal law prohibits discrimination against families with children, except in certain cases such as communities for

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