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November 2020 update on our ministry to bring Hope and Purpose to those marginalized by gang affiliation and its impact on communities.

Hearts Uniting

This last month has been a busy one for us here at SCO. Jodie and I have been slowly expanding a path for homies being released or already in the community and hoping to take their lives in a new direction. We are working on expanding our services to youth, and are having conversation with Youth Enrichment Services from Snohomish County as well as some awesome teachers from Mariner High School and partners in the Denny Juvenile Justice Center. We are carving out space at the farm to host NW Hearts United, to offer equine therapy to clients on the margins through qualified counselors and the natural similarities between horses as herd animals of prey and people from a gang-affiliated lifestyle. If we can unmask the pain before the pain becomes a hardened shield around their hearts, we can impact the hearts and souls of homies to see love again. We will have more information about these developments in upcoming newsletters. Please keep us and our whole team in prayer as we continue creating a path for those in need.

Being a homie in the past has blessed me to have the courage to always shoot it straight. I come from a life that the wrong color or wrong stare will get you beat down or shot. When I was in prison and I lost my good time due to a riot or some gang affiliation, all that came to my head was ”no one said it was rainbows and butterflies." I learned how to never fabricate how valuable our lives are nor make the impression that just because homies ask for help that the story will be a success. That's not up to me to decide because, like I tell every homie I have encountered, "I will stand with you as long as you let me". Bryan Stevenson in his book Just Mercy says:

"There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. When you experience mercy, you learn things that are hard to learn otherwise. You see things you can't otherwise see; you hear things you can't otherwise hear. You begin to recognize the humanity that resides in each of us."

So even during those times when a homie's brokenness overpowers their efforts toward a better life, we trust that showing them mercy, love, and hope will somehow build them up and prepare them to make further progress the next time they try. We Hope. That is our Purpose.

Every month I get the honor of sharing with you the story of a homie we've encountered. This month I want to introduce you to two brothers who's young lives have been greatly impacted by the gang-infested neighborhood they grew up in: Lil Alex and his big brother Manny. I also want to invite you to participate in our Hope for Christmas toy drive, which connects incarcerated parents with their kids for the holiday. Read further to find how you can help strengthen the parent/child bond and deliver Hope to kids separated from a parent by prison walls. I also want to introduce you to our newest board member, Honey Jo Herman, who comes to us with a wealth of experience and dedication to helping families through the trauma of incarceration, and works extensively on prevention measures. Finally, we give thanks to our partners and supporters, and ask for your help in praying for those we are connected with.

Thank you for following our efforts here at Second Chance Outreach. We are so honored to be able to do this work and offer the love of Christ to folks at the margins.

May God grant you a thankful spirit and give you the strength and resources to serve His kingdom with joy in your heart.

Sincerely,
Neaners

Two Journeys In One Family

Over the years I have walked alongside a variety of people, including both adults and juveniles. My constant prayer is, "God, please place those who need my love and support in my path.” In the midst of all of my post-prison journey, there have always been 2 youngster who have blessed me by allowing to be part of their lives: Lil Alex and his big brother Manny. This is a picture of them in the cell they shared in juvenile detention, where they are both servicing juvenile life sentences for gang-related activity. Manny is now 21 and will be released later this month. Lil Alex is now 20 and is looking at 5 more years in detention, as he is impacted by the increase in state juvenile sentencing rules. Lil Alex and Manny's stories are similar to many of the stories of kids now detained for juvenile offenses. Their gang involvement started off a at a young age, and has set them up for a challenging entry to adulthood.

I met Lil Alex years ago through the juvenile court system, and was able to see all the challenges he was up against. Alex's mom had relocated from Mexico to the Skagit Valley first, and gradually brought the kids up once she got settled - first Lil Alex, and then eventually Manny as well. Their mother and step-father both worked hard to provide a home for them, but this required working all day, seven days a week; leaving the boys alone a great deal of the time. Both Lil Alex and Manny carried their pains differently and reacted differently to the love and approach I offered. We spent numerous hours building lowrider bikes, making music, and playing football in the mud as well as hours and hours of convincing teachers to look beyond the baggy clothes and jersey and do what they could to keep these kids in school.

When I first met Lil Alex he was a preppy little kid trying to find his way in life. The neighborhood he lived in was gang-infested and dangerous, and because of that his mother insisted that he stay inside the house rather than go out to play like the other kids Lil Alex saw. This restriction and other tensions caused many fights within the family. Eventually Lil Alex rebelled and started going outside, and was soon jumped into a gang. He struggled with the same challenges that most gang-involved kids face: a culture of violence, drugs, and pressures that eventually put him in juvenile detention. Lil Alex has been locked up since he was 17 and will release as an adult at age 25.

Manny's story is a little different. When he arrived in The Valley he jumped right into gang-banging and got locked up at age 15. Manny's plan now, at age 21, is to release to his mother's home and try to start his new life off right. It won't be easy. The challenges that await him are huge and his success will depend mostly on him. But we'll be there to pick him up on release, get him clothes and basic supplies, and get him home to his family. In the coming months we'll visit his house and talk with his family about what support they need, work on getting his paperwork in order, find transportation, and get his facial tattoos removed. And we will pray every day that he will seek the path that God is laying out for him.

Scientist Matthew Lieberman from the Department of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA says in his book "Social" that our need to connect is as fundamental as our need for food and water. He's right; connection is one of the main reasons that kids are attracted to gangs. Gangs offer kids a place to belong and be part of something; a way to connect with people around them and bring meaning to their lives. As kids grow older, the ones who want a different life are challenged with both stepping out of their current culture and into a healthier one. They need a new place to connect.

The challenges that await people like Lil Alex and Manny make me afraid for them, as I have walked in their shoes and I know how much change they'll have to go through to have healthy and satisfying adulthoods. This is why we do what we do. We work with adults who started their lives in this type of childhood, and we are expanding our partnerships to further our work with youth - to help prevent them from living out their youth in detention, to help bridge the culture gap between this culture and the main stream culture where more resources are available, and ultimately to help more young people discover their worth and direct their lives into places that lift them and their communities up.

Hope for Christmas Toy Drive

The holiday season can be a difficult time for families separated by prison walls. That is why we host our Hope for Christmas toy drive; to ensure there is a connection between parents in prison and the kids at home who love them and wish they could be together. Parents in the DOC who want to participate provide name, age and gender of their kids and a contact adul-t able to receive the gifts. We collect donations of new, unwrapped toys, gifts and gift cards for the kids, wrap them, and deliver them to the contact person. Ultimately the gifts are given to the children, from their incarcerated parents, with a hand written letter from the parent expressing love and wishing them a Merry Christmas.

Second Chance Outreach does this not just to provide gifts for the kids, but in effort to bridge the gap between these homies and their children as these relationships are often strained. Holidays amplify the fact that a parent is missing. Being able to facilitate a direct connection between incarcerated parents and their kids builds Hope for the children and Purpose for the parents.

We welcome your contribution of unwrapped toys for boys and girls ages 3-12, or gift cards under $25 for teens. Items such as balls and games, dolls and teddy bears, toy cars, art supplies, craft kits and cuddly blankets are perfect. As families can be spread across the state, teen gift cards for major chains such as Target, Wallmart, Kohl's and Fred Meyer are especially useful. We also welcome cash donations to help with the cost of postage and wrapping. Your donations will not only serve to make a child feel special, but will send a message to their family that the community does in fact care about them and the difficulties they face.

Donations can be dropped off at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Snohomish, Caddell's Laser & Electrolysis Clinic in Bellevue, and the Hope for Homies Farm (please call me ahead at (360)429-9117 to arrange a farm drop off). You can donate financially online through our website at www.HopeForHomies.org, or through Venmo to @Jose-Garcia-2536.

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Introducing Honey Jo Herman, SCO Board Member

We want to introduce you to Honey Jo Herman, our newest board member. Honey Jo comes to the board of Second Chance Outreach with a depth and breadth of experience in supporting the inherent strengths of persons at-risk of or already in contact with the justice system. She has dedicated her career to reducing youth incarceration and supporting individuals who are re-entering the community from prison.

Honey Jo has demonstrated great success in serving those experiencing adversity after having overcome it herself, experiencing of six years of incarceration. She uses her experience to connect and bring authenticity to working with current and formerly justice involved persons. She is local to South Seattle. Her professional experience includes:

Operations/ Workshop Director with Choose 180. Delivering community-based diversion workshops (diverting youth and young adults out of King County Superior Court) and managing many aspects of the program from administration to engagement.
Program Manager at King County Superior Court. Managing the work of King County Credible Messengers, a program that prepares non-traditional leaders to mentor youth participants in the Juvenile Court Mentorship Program.
Program Coordination and Facilitation with the Alive & Free program, where she developed and facilitated culturally responsive programming for youth involved in gangs, violence, and the juvenile justice system with an emphasis on addressing disproportionate minority contact and confinement.
Program Lead at Pioneer Human Services. Serving re-entering citizens in both vocational and personal growth.
Youth Programs Director with the IF Project. Expanding the reach of the program through curriculum development, and engagement, utilizing the stories of incarcerated women as a prevention tool for youth.

We are grateful for the commitment Ms. Herman is making by joining the Second Chance Outreach board and look forward to her assistance in broadening our prevention program impact. Thank you Honey Jo!

Prayers of Thanks

We are excited to be adding Chris Wolf to our partnership team as our grant writer. Chris runs Chris Wolf Grants in Anacortes, WA and was formerly a grant writer and all purpose team member for Growing Veterans, a northwest program healing veterans through farming and kinship.
Second Chance Outreach was blessed to receive a generous grant from the Snohomish Community Foundation to help support our continuing operations through this tough year of 2020.
We remain incredibly thankful for our individual donors and supporters, both old and new. You are the backbone of our organization and make it possible for us to do our work. Thank you for your financial and prayerful support as we continue this journey of Hope and Purpose!

Please continue to pray for those locked up during the upcoming holidays as they are away from there loved ones, for those who are being impacted by COVID-19 physically, mentally and financially, and for the other organizations doing work with similar populations as we cross paths to create avenues of advancement and support for those on the margins.