Transformation Starts From Within: A Story Celebrating Service
I went to law school in California planning to make the world a safer place by incarcerating criminals. During my first week, I volunteered to teach incarcerated youth about the law, in all honesty, because I wanted to meet “juvenile delinquents.”
This service experience changed my life.
I realized that underneath the shells of hardened “juvenile delinquents” were kids. Kids who had grown up believing that by the time they were 18 or 21 they would be in prison or dead.
Kids who over and over again would tell me: “If only.”
- “If only I knew how much trouble I would get into.”
- “If only someone had cared about me.”
- “If only I had been given a chance to do something good for community…I wouldn’t be here.”
I hadn’t expected to care. But, their stories began to haunt me. I found myself wishing that someone would listen to their ideas and do something to help. Then it hit me – I should stop wishing and start doing.
So I asked them, “What would you do to help other kids from ending up here?” They said: 1. Teach kids about the consequences of crime to help them learn how to make better choices; 2. Connect them with a positive role model to help them be successful; and 3. give them a chance to give back to their communities to help them show it’s not too late for “juvenile delinquents” to change.
These youth wrote letters of recommendations for seed funding to start Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY). Today, over 10 years later, with 100 volunteers and 26 staff, FLY provides the programs they recommended: legal education, mentoring, and leadership training for kids in the juvenile justice system and those at-risk for system involvement. The kids who helped design FLY were right; their suggestions worked. FLY effectively helps kids start transforming their lives for less than 1/10 the cost of incarceration.
At FLY, the youth we seek to serve continue to be our greatest teachers, reminding us that those we want to help have the greatest insights into what they need and an incredible capacity to serve as part of the solution. Personally, I am mindful that being a part of an organization that is all about transformation began, first, with my own.
Christa Gannon is the Founder and Executive Director of Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)
White House Blogs
- The White House Blog
- Middle Class Task Force
- Council of Economic Advisers
- Council on Environmental Quality
- Council on Women and Girls
- Office of Intergovernmental Affairs
- Office of Management and Budget
- Office of Public Engagement
- Office of Science & Tech Policy
- Office of Urban Affairs
- Open Government
- Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships
- Social Innovation and Civic Participation
- US Trade Representative
- Office National Drug Control Policy
categories
- AIDS Policy
- Alaska
- Blueprint for an America Built to Last
- Budget
- Civil Rights
- Defense
- Disabilities
- Economy
- Education
- Energy and Environment
- Equal Pay
- Ethics
- Faith Based
- Fiscal Responsibility
- Foreign Policy
- Grab Bag
- Health Care
- Homeland Security
- Immigration
- Innovation Fellows
- Inside the White House
- Middle Class Security
- Open Government
- Poverty
- Rural
- Seniors and Social Security
- Service
- Social Innovation
- State of the Union
- Taxes
- Technology
- Urban Policy
- Veterans
- Violence Prevention
- White House Internships
- Women
- Working Families
- Additional Issues