At age 15 and concerned in gang life, Jason Silvestre discovered himself locked up for 2 years on the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center on Chicago’s West Side.
“At first it was terrible. I was an angry person,” stated Silvestre, now 20, of Logan Square.
“I started seeing all these different programs they had, and after a year, I said, ‘You know what? I’m in here. I might as well take advantage and do something productive with my time instead of just sitting around looking mad all day,’ ” he stated.
He acquired concerned in a painter’s apprentice program provided to youth on the middle by way of its philanthropic arm, the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center Foundation.
Founded in 2009, the inspiration supplies funding for life- and jobs-skills coaching, instructional and therapeutic actions for the 200-250 youth housed on any given day at one of many nation’s largest juvenile jails — the five-story constructing positioned two miles from County Jail.
More than 90 p.c of the youth there are Black or Hispanic; 93 p.c are male.
To mark its 10th anniversary, the inspiration held its first-ever fundraiser on Friday night time, highlighting success tales like Silvestre, who upon launch, enrolled full-time in a painter’s commerce faculty, and simply accomplished three years in this system, now incomes a reputable residing.
“I go to school one day a week, and work the other four days. And the pay is good,” Silvestre stated on the gala held on the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
“I used to play with drugs and guns and stuff like that. That was my life. Now it’s like, I have a paintbrush in my hand that I get for no more than $20. It lasts me for a while, and I don’t have to look over my shoulder.”
On Sept. 19, Mayor Lori Lightfoot visited the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center at 1100 S. Hamilton, addressing an viewers of some 50 youth and holding a non-public roundtable with 10. Here, she’s within the middle’s library with JTDCF Executive Director D. Sharon Grant and Board Secretary Rev. Gregory Dahgett.Provided picture
The occasion’s chair was none apart from Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who, the week earlier than, visited the jail at 1100 S. Hamilton Ave. with basis Executive Director D. Sharon Grant. There, she addressed an viewers of some 50 youths, then met privately with 10 of them afterward.
Lightfoot shared her personal brother’s story of getting into the revolving door of jail as a youth; and as she steadily does when partaking with youth, sought insights straight from them on options to the lethal violence gripping inner-city neighborhoods lots of them name dwelling.
“It was really at the age of a lot of these kids in the center that my brother started on his path to being in the streets,” Lightfoot informed the Chicago Sun-Times.
“He grew up in the same household that I did, and made a lot of choices that made his life tremendously hard,” she stated. “As a consequence, he spent most of his grownup life locked up in jail, and he’s now a person in his early 60s with solely a high-school diploma. He struggles each single day, and it’s very, very troublesome for him to search out reputable work.
“What I wished to allow them to know is that I’ve that have in my circle of relatives, and the way exhausting it’s and troublesome, in the event that they let that occur,” she added. “But also, that they can take control of their own destiny. They don’t have to stay in those kind of choices that put them on a path from which it’s going to take them years, if not decades, to recover.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot served as chair of the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center Foundation’s first-ever fundraiser, a gala held Friday, marking the nonprofit’s 10th anniversary. She spoke earlier than 250 attendees Friday in help of the inspiration’s work.Maudlyne Ihejirika/Sun-Times …
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