Success Stories

The success of many Free Minds graduates demonstrates that with the appropriate support these youths can positively redirect their lives. After release, our graduates have gone on to:

• Achieve General Equivalency Diplomas (GED’s)
• Return to study at public high schools in Washington, DC
• Apply and be accepted to DC Public Charter Schools
• Enter vocational schools
• Obtain full-time employment
• Study for the SAT and ACT exams
• Apply and be accepted to professional schools

With the help of Free Minds, graduates have also:

• Strengthened family bonds
• Taken a more active role in their children’s lives
• Changed attitudes toward academic achievement
• Developed greater self-awareness and self-esteem
• Built critical job-interview, public speaking and communication skills
• Become positive role models for younger siblings
• Continued reading and writing poetry

Delonte (continued from front page)

Delonte says his time in prison and the books he read made him appreciate what he had in life. After reading about poverty and war around the world, he realized that even though he was incarcerated he had advantages that other children did not. This set him on a course of taking responsibility for his actions; he became determined to break the cycle of incarceration and create his own destiny.

Delonte obtained his GED certificate while doing time at FCI Cumberland in western Maryland. He was released from prison at the age of 20. Free Minds assisted Delonte in obtaining his first job that fall as a busboy at a restaurant in downtown Washington, DC. This job taught him many basic skills needed to maintain employment. A year later, he interned at the office of Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop, which helped him gain basic administrative skills and further his work readiness. “I liked feeling productive and helping Free Minds.”

More recently, Delonte participated with Free Minds in a joint project with the D.C. non-profit Lifepieces to Masterpieces. Delonte took away from these experiences the understanding that he chooses his path in life. “What I got out of the program was knowing that I can control my life no matter the situation...and the understanding that I have the power to do whatever I want to do.”

These days, Delonte is busy at work, maintaining the grounds and buildings at an apartment complex after Free Minds helped him enroll in DC’s Project Empowerment Program. His life has changed dramatically since the day he was locked up. “My priorities have changed the most. Me, as a person, I've changed the most.” Delonte is expecting his first child. He is looking forward to getting to be a father and providing for his child. Meanwhile, he feels fortunate that Free Minds has been in his life.

“When I look back on my experiences with Free Minds, I will always remember the friends I made and the importance of keeping a positive attitude and always having hope for your future.”

 

Interview with Jermaine

by Vicky Goodale, Free Minds Summer Intern

How did you first get involved with Free Minds?

I first got involved with Free Minds in ’07 when I first got locked up. Tara and Kelli came to see me at the jail. I was 16 years old. When I was sentenced, and shipped out, one of the first letters I received was from Free Minds. Tara and Kelli kept in touch with me until I was released. They came to see me in North Dakota, visited me over Christmas, that’s something I’ll never forget. When I came home, they let me work in the Free Minds office as an intern for about two weeks.

How long have you been working for Free Minds?

When I was released last fall, I worked at the Free Minds office for a couple of weeks. Since then, we’ve done a few different programs, a poetry jam, a radio show with 93.9, a two week program with Life Pieces where every one of us got certificates for completing the program, and we recorded a song for the “Hear Us Out” program held on I Street in 2009.

What kind of work do you do at Free Minds?

I am the Communications and Social Media apprentice at Free Minds. I get assignments daily, schedule upcoming events, and call to check up on everyone within the Free Minds community. I’m in charge of helping to call the youth involved in Free Minds, get in touch with them to update them on our current events, see if they need anything, and just generally find out what’s new with them. I reach out to people who haven’t been in touch with us in awhile.

What’s your favorite part about working for Free Minds?

My favorite part about working for Free Minds is gaining new experiences daily. I am doing different things that I wouldn’t normally do. Also, being around my fellow Free Minds members, Tara and Juliana, is another great joy I get out of working at Free Minds.

What’s your favorite book?

One of my favorites is The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur, I’ve read it more than once. I also really like Dark by Kenji Jasper.

Juliana tells me that you have a bright future in music. Tell me more about your music career.

I’ve been writing lyrics and doing music since I was 9 years old. I’m currently working with LOP Records and also affiliated with DCR Records. I’ve been working with LOP since I was 14 years old, doing a couple of CDs. My music career is taking off. Right now, we’re doing a mixtape set to drop at the end of this month. Then we’ll get a published copy written, get it in stores, and sell it. Right now we’re doing shows at local clubs, networking and doing photo and video shoots to promote the mixtape.

Fifty years from now, what is one thing you will look back on and always remember about Free Minds?

Fifty years from now, I will always remember that Free Minds were the ones there for me when people that were supposed to have cared about me weren’t there. Tara and Kelli were always in my corner, always reached out to me no matter what kind of situation I was in. I will never forget that.

Paulo's Story

Paulo was just 17 years old when he was charged and incarcerated as an adult at the DC Jail.

When he looks back he sees a lost young man with no goals or dreams. “I didn’t think much about my future or my life. I lived day-by-day. I was too preoccupied with hanging out with my friends, stealing and causing problems,” he says now.

“I didn’t like to read or write before I came to prison,” says Paulo. “It bored me…I was in the 10th grade and I didn’t even know how to compose a complete sentence.”

Left: Paulo graduates from the GED program at Petersburg Federal Prison

All of that changed when Paulo joined Free Minds. Initially, the first time he was told it was time for “Book Club,” Paulo attended only because he was so desperate to leave the isolation of his cell. But it was that one Monday morning that he says helped him change his life.

“Thanks to Free Minds, I now place a great value in books and in writing,” he says. “I have come to understand why so many people hold on to their books and writing as a treasure…Free Minds has taught me how to select books and how to value them, and in writing, how to free my mind and be creative. What it has emphasized to me, moreover, is that reading and writing are fun! Free Minds was the kick a car needs to sometimes start.”

Since his transfer to federal prison, Paulo has remained in touch with Free Minds. He not only receives letters regularly, but also new books. “Every book that I have received from Free Minds has taught me something. I always learn something form a book whether it’s a new word, a new writing style, or a new idea,” he says. “Books are always leaving a mark on my life.” The book that has had the greatest impact upon Paulo is A Place to Stand, the autobiography of acclaimed poet Jimmy Santiago Baca. “He writes about what I’m going through,” Paulo says. “I speak not of the physical, but of the mental struggles and of how he dealt with them. I see myself following his footsteps.”

Paulo also writes to his Free Minds volunteer pen pal, Kristen. “Over the years, I never thought that I would meet someone like my pen pal,” he says. “It is people like her that make one reflect upon one’s life.”

Paulo has come a very long way since he first came to Free Minds at the DC jail in 2003. He has not only earned his GED, but he now teaches courses to other inmates in federal prison helping them to pursue higher education. In 2007, he and a partner developed a seminar to teach other inmates how to get their GED and earn a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated. Paulo has already successfully completed three college courses and earned high grades in all of them. He plans to obtain his undergraduate degree and then pursue graduate school to become a psychologist.

“Changes are happening everyday in my life,” Paulo says. “I see myself as more mature…I have become more caring and responsible. Finally, I have changed my entire perspective on how I should live my life.”

 

Drew

“Before I got locked up, I lived a cruddy street life. I didn’t really have any respect for anybody. I just lived day by day without a plan.”

At left: Drew at a ceremony recognizing the receipt of his GED

Drew, now 20, was arrested and charged as an adult for a robbery in 2004 at the age of 17. He hated school, and dropped out in the 10th grade. He especially hated to read. The only reason he came to Free Minds at all was to get out of his cell at the DC Jail for a couple of hours. He was not interested in reading the books or completing the writing assignments.

Gradually, Drew’s outlook began to change. For the first time in his life, he read a book from start to finish. He started writing poetry, which he says helped him to understand other writers. His favorite poem is one that he wrote: “I Am.” Drew now believes that books and reading can change lives. “You can watch TV and you see the pictures in your eyes, but when you’re reading a book, you can imagine the way the story goes,” he says.

Free Minds remained in contact with Drew after his transfer to a juvenile corrections school in Wisconsin in late 2004, and continued to write to him and send him books. In a letter he wrote that first year, he said: “If I had this type of support when I was in the streets I would not be in jail right now...Y’all got me over here writing letters, poems and stories. I think I could be a writer! It makes me feel so happy, I never had no one who cared about my education. So y’all really touch my heart.”

In January 2006 Drew passed the GED exam. He was released in July and returned to Washington. He recently enrolled in barber school and landed a fulltime job at a new DC restaurant. Drew plans to attend college to study business and eventually open his own barber shop. He also hopes to play as much basketball as possible.

Harold

“What was important to me then was making money to be the flyest kid on the block.... Now, I would like to have a nice family, get a degree in Recreation & Leisure Studies, help someone else that may be headed the same direction I went, own a home, and just live a normal life.”

Harold was charged and incarcerated as an adult in the DC Jail at the age of 17. At the time, he had completed the 10th grade. “I almost got a scholarship for basketball, but I was too caught up in the streets,” he wrote in a letter to a Free Minds pen pal.

Before joining the Free Minds Book Club, Harold had never read an entire book before. One of the first books he read in full was The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah. He was captivated by the novel’s main character, Winter Santiaga.

Harold was transferred to a federal prison in North Carolina and now reads several books each month. One of Harold’s poems, “In My Tomorrow” was an audience favorite at the Free Minds Third Annual Poetry Reading.

“Before I came to Free Minds, I was writing raps and stuff like that,” he says. “Free Minds helped me discover that I can really get somewhere by writing positively. It opens your mind up and lets people see the type of things you think about.”

In March 2006, Harold passed the GED examination. “The GED is just an infant step compared to what I want to do educationally. I would love to go to college,” says Harold. He is currently hard at work studying for the SAT test. “In the future I plan to be successful in whatever I choose to do,” he says.

 

© Copyright 2006 Free Minds Book Club and Writing Workshop