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Testimonials & Success Stories

A Letter...

Not every Homecomer meets with success.  As Cortez’ story demonstrates, a person must want to change his life – truly want something different – or else all of the help and assistance by the Homecomers (or by any other organization) will likely result in failure – often evidenced by re-incarceration.

National Homecomers Academy works with individuals to kindle the spark, and to nurture the flame of the spirit.  Sometimes the process is jagged -- two-steps forward and one step back.  That’s what happened with Jerry.  The Homecomers had welcomed Jerry who had tried to help him stay on the straight path.  And, for a while, Jerry went through the motions – but the Homecomers knew and Curtis Watkins (the Homecomers’ Director) knew and Jerry, himself, knew – that his desire to change wasn’t complete.  Curtis Watkins pleaded with Jerry – urging Jerry to leave Washington, DC and to relocate to Wisconsin where he had family and children.  Curtis feared that the fast life of DC and its drug trade would be more than Jerry could handle.

Jerry did move to Wisconsin for a while, but, he wasn’t ready to stay away.  Instead, he came back to the nation’s capital.  Soon after arriving back in DC – and avoiding the Homecomers -- Jerry returned to his old ways – dealing drugs, wearing flashy clothes and driving a fancy car purchased with drug money.

A couple of months later, Curtis received a letter from Jerry – written from a jail cell.  Portions of the letter are excerpted here:

Mr. Curtis, What’s up?  I’m sitting here looking for a way to start this letter, I guess it’s hard to tell someone that they was right . . .  Sometimes I sit here and just zone out and think, what if I would have listened to you and never got on or off of that plane and stayed my ass up in Wisconsin.

It’s like it snowballed into something much bigger than I ever wanted and it started to play on my greed and my selfishness and it blinded me, and long story short it took almost everything from me and at the end of the day it never was really worth it.  They took my car, I lost my apartment.  I lost my so called girlfriend, my kids and their mother, the ones that loved Jerry for Jerry. 

You know life is funny with its twists and turns and jail will force you to see it in a different light (if you let it), you start to see people and things for what they really are, you start to see the meaning of your life, what’s your purpose.  It takes the blindfold off and if you allow it, makes you want to be better (and never come back).

Man, real talk.  Most of the things I’m proud of in life come from our relationship and the things I have done through the Center.  You know me (the real me), the things that you have had me be a part of mean a lot to me.  I tell my story and our relationship to a lot of people.  I tell them about our program and how we used to help the community, the football team I used to coach, the people I talked to, to help us get money for the kids and programs.  I also tell them about how you all sent me to Wisconsin and how I went to school and even up there I worked with kids and mentored them.

I wanted to contact you a while ago but I was kinda ashamed to, I can remember the last time I saw you, we was in the parking lot at Phillips.  You seen my car and shook your head.

Never give up on people like me.  We don’t have that many people who care about us, so in some of our lives you are a hero and very special.  We need you out there to save our kids.  They need you and that program more than ever.
 

Thanks for listening,

Jerry

We won’t give up on Jerry or the 750,000 inmates who return to society each year.  We will continue to find the Homecomers whose hearts have changed.  We hope to count Jerry in that group in a few years hence.

Cortez

Cortez was a superstar high school football player, bound for a big Division I college program.  He had grown up in a good, stable middle-class family.  His Dad was a career army professional.  Cortez had his sights set on playing in the NFL.  And then, it happened, a career ending injury – and his hopes for professional football were over.  As he tells it:  “I had no back-up plan.”

And so, he began his young adult life adrift – partying, drinking, drugging and eventually dealing drugs.  The consequences of that lifestyle and of drug addiction swept him into the revolving door of prison life.  He spent more than eighteen years behind bars – the last time being an 80-month stint in the federal prison at Petersburg, Virginia for assault with intent to rob.

It was during his last two years at Petersburg that Cortez began to change.  He took stock of his life – the opportunities he had wasted, the promises he had broken, the trusts he had violated.  He was now a middle-aged man – and he had squandered every chance.  He needed a hip replacement – he could hardly walk.  As he reflected on the course of his journey, he vowed that if he ever got the chance again to take the straight path – he would do it – and he would never return to prison life.

Cortez is convinced that in order to change, a person has to cleanse the heart and the soul.  Cosmetic change is not sufficient.  “You need,” he says, “to get the garbage out.  You can put a suit on a garbage can, but there’s still garbage in there.  It’s the same with people.”

Cortez was released from Petersburg in August of 2008.  He was sent to a shelter in Washington, DC.  But there were no beds in the shelter.  He slept on the first night of freedom in a chair in the bus station.  The next morning, when he could barely walk, a policeman directed him to a medical clinic.  There he received care and was offered the chance to get a bed at a different shelter.  The female doctor warned him, “But, the place has bed bugs.”

Cortez answered, “I don’t care.  I’ll take it!”  Those acts of kindness began the odyssey of healing – that now finds Cortez (with a new hip) as a Homecomer and a full-time employee of the Father McKenna Center where he runs the drop-in service for homeless men and the hypothermia program.

Cortez recounts one of the happiest moments of his life – one that occurred during the first winter of being a Homecomer.  It was a bitter-cold day in Washington.  And he was participating in a clothes drive.  People were lining up – women, children, old men, young boys – and he was handing out coats and gloves and hats and scarves.  “They were so happy to get these gifts.  The smiles on their faces -- and on mine.  I will never forget that feeling.  My heart was full of joy.  Here I was handing out clothes and I had none of my own.”

William T

”You change your life by changing your heart.” – Max Lucado

It’s a sweltering hot August evening in one of Washington, DC’s roughest neighborhoods. The Homecomers have set up a card table and a charcoal grill.  They are busy roasting hotdogs and handing out bottled water to the small throng of neighbors that have gathered at Malcolm X Park – attracted by the smell of hickory smoke and the excitement of the community gathering.

William T. is hard at it – jawing with grandmothers, teenage girls and the men – young and old -- that have congregated around him.  William T. is middle-aged now – 55-years old.  Sweat has beaded up on his face.  His t-shirt has soaked through.  Yet, this mountain of a man has the passion of a revival-tent preacher because he knows.  He knows what it was like to be young and black and poor and to have no direction.  He knows the lure of the streets.  But most importantly, William T. knows what he is about.  His message is powerful as he recites the statistics of a lifetime wasted in a federal prison.  He’s done the time and he’s done his arithmetic – “31.89 years.”  He reels off the numbers: “1,662 weeks -- 11,640 days – more than 16-million minutes – over a billion seconds!”

William T. was only 21-years old when those steel doors locked.  That was in 1977 and Jimmy Carter was President of the United States.  There were no personal computers or cell phones then.  That was the era of typewriters and rotary-dial pay phones.  The price of gasoline was 65-cents a gallon.  The minimum wage was just $2.30.  And William T. was in the prime of his youth with a lifetime of possibilities.  All of those hopes and dreams came to a crashing end when the steel doors slammed shut.

But, on this night, William T. is a happy man.  He knows that statistic, too.  Seven-hundred fifty-two days of “deliverance” – a spiritual awakening that occurred just before he left a Florida jail cell with a heart that ached to be a better man.  William T. is on a mission certain.  He believes that he is a force for good.  He has banded with the other Homecomers to be an agent for change.  William T. will to do everything and anything to convince at-risk men and women to “choose a different path.”  He can show them where the other path leads.  He speaks from his heart.  As he talks, he passes out his card – “William T., National Homecomers Academy, Community Change Agent.”  And on that card is his cell phone number.  He delivers the message:  “You can call me, any time.  Day or night – or in the middle of the night.  I’ll answer.”

From the corner of his eye, William T. spots a young man – reluctant, withdrawn, hanging back from the others.  When the chance presents itself, William T. slips away from the crowd and approaches him.  He’s about nineteen years old and thin.  His eyes, bloodshot with pupils dilated, reveal instantly to William T. that the young man is high.  William T. has that unsettled feeling that he is looking at himself in a distant mirror.

“So, Shorty.  What’s your story?  Why are you here?” asks William T.  And the two men begin to converse, haltingly at first.  And little-by-little, they build a rapport.  William T. learns that the young man is troubled – continually being prodded and coaxed by his “street friends” to participate in activities that could cause him to windup “behind bars.”  They talk – in a give and take – for the next hour.

As the grill is being stowed away and the stereo speakers disconnected, William T. slips the young man his card and, with a smile, repeats to Shorty what he had earlier told the crowd:  “You can call me, any time.  Day or night – or in the middle of the night.  I’ll answer.”

A little more than four months have passed since that August night.  And William T.’s cell phone is ringing.  He opens his eyes and picks up the phone.  It’s 2:38 a.m.

“Hey, O.G. (short for Old Gangster), you said I could call you any time.” says the voice on the other end.

“I did, Shorty.  I did say that,” William T. replies.

For the next two hours, the O.G. and the young man talk.  Something is about to “go down,” and Shorty’s “friends” want him to be a part of it.   But, the young man doesn’t want to be involved – and William T. counsels him and speaks from his heart.  William T. talks about choosing paths and about consequences.

“Stand-up and man-up,” urges William T.

Somewhere in the District of Columbia, that next evening, an armed robbery occurred.  The perpetrators were arrested.  “Shorty” was not among them.