08/07/2026
How it all got started!!!
Yesterday I visited Angola, the country's largest penitentiary. This was my first trip there and It was surreal. I spoke with a few men while there. Two of them stood out to me. One gentlemen was doing 44 years flat-time. In regards to the youth he said "catch them while they are young before they start living backwards." "The longer you wait the harder it gonna be." The next gentleman I spoke with I thought was a staff worker. He had a clipboard teaching and helping others around the facility. He had on a T-shirt that said "Angola, ain't no place to be." In my ignorance I asked him how long had he been working there. He said 27 years. I said, retirement soon right.. He said no I've been "here" 27 years. He was an offender doing a life sentence. He said "when I was younger I gave the world the worst of me, now to keep hope, I try to give the world the best of me." As I left Angola I thought about the people I had spoken to and the things I had seen. It made me more determined to make the G.R.O.W. Collaboration a success. Gradually Righting Our Wrongs has to start with youth engagement and introducing them to positive new experiences. If we don't introduce them to something new and positive, then the streets will introduce them to the same old negativity. We all know how that is going to end..
Angola sits on 18,000 acres or 28 sq miles of land. They have space for you, but trust me, like the guy's t- shirt said, "Angola, it ain't no place to be"..
GROW....
