​BENDRICK FOSTER

Bendrick Foster, Founder of New Life Movement, was born in 1975 at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California. His father Benny (a Church of God in Christ Minister) and mother Aille (a missionary and registered nurse) owned a home in the Park Plaza neighborhood on the Southside of Richmond, around the corner from Kennedy High School and adjacent to Martin Luther King Elementary School where Bendrick, the fifth child of nine, received his childhood education. Bendrick was reared in the church where, at an early age, he became an active church choir drummer. 

As with so many Richmond youth, Bendrick began to exhibit delinquent behavior in middle school. Due to a lack of academic preparation for junior high, Bendrick was catapulted into shame and despair in the classroom. Feeling inadequate, he became disruptive in class and distracted by many of his classmates who were undergoing a similar experience.

Bendrick dropped out of school completely by 9th grade and never enrolled in high school.
1988-2014 was the lifespan of Bendrick Foster as the drug dealing, hustling, gun-carrying player that had amassed a great deal of respect and authority on the streets of Richmond, by being what people living criminal lives called “true to the game”. He was down for whatever.

In mid-2014, however, a new life began for Bendrick. Propelled by his faith and a higher calling, he began to recognize that generations of Richmond youth had and were continuing to self-destruct in the same manner he had.

Desperate to be a positive influence on the troubled youth he was seeing daily in his community, Bendrick realized that he needed to create a new life for himself before attempting to help neighborhood youth find theirs. It took Bendrick a full year to do the personal work necessary to effectively share the lessons of his own challenging experience as a young man in Richmond, and to begin guiding younger generations toward positive, fulfilling lives through intentional outreach and mentorship. He stopped his involvement with any illegal drug activity, ceased carrying guns, and began to take more responsibility for the wellbeing of his family and his community.

In 2015, Bendrick leveraged his decades of influence gained in the streets to stop illegal activity in a Richmond community park adjacent to Martin Luther King Elementary, where students were exposed to criminal behavior on the way to and from school each day. 

Commenting on this experience, Bendrick reflects that “I had been funkin’ and dealing with stuff in that park all my life. I knew cleaning up that park would be the hardest thing I could do, but if I could do it, it would be something that lasts and would help the children come to play in the park without worrying about getting shot, raped, or robbed.” Bendrick’s park cleanup was so successful that both the City of Richmond and an anonymous philanthropist donated funds to fully renovate the park.

Bendrick continued to work helping calm the disputes and conflicts taking place between students at Kennedy High, for which he received recognition from the West Contra Costa Unified School District. In 2016, Bendrick was offered and accepted the Vice Presidency of the Park Plaza Neighborhood Council.

Today, Bendrick continues his advocacy and direct youth outreach intervention and capacity building work through his organization, New Life Movement. With a team dedicated to carrying out Bendrick’s vision for his community, New Life regularly mentors at-risk youth and collaborates with other local organizations to create a network to support their success. In 2020, New Life Movement created a Youth Resource Center/Café in the heart of Richmond’s downtown Iron Triangle neighborhood, complete with a STEM lab to help youth gain valuable interpersonal, socio-emotional, and entrepreneurial skills.  

Bendrick is a loving husband to his wife Nae – a nurse and his greatest supporter – and a dedicated father to their two sons Davion and Little Bennie (who love to do their school work at the New Life Resource Center/Café with dad).

“I used to hear people talking about Richmond, the ‘City of Pride and Purpose’” says Bendrick. “I would laugh, like ‘right, proud of what, what’s the purpose?’ But one day I rode past and really looked at the sign [with the city’s slogan], and I finally got it. I should have known about it as a child, but I can tell the children now because I get it. All children need to have pride in order to have purpose.”