Stand Together Against Poverty

At 38 years old, Dave Durocher was looking at a life sentence.

Dave Durocher. All images in this post by Upworthy and Stand Together.

He was a self-professed corruptor who'd ruined people's lives. As a high-level drug dealer, he'd already spent years in prison. After completing a two-year sentence, he immediately went back to selling drugs then was arrested again. He did a five-year prison sentence that time. Then a six-year sentence. Then a 10-year sentence. Four consecutive prison sentences.

His was the story you hear about and would think - “people like that will never change." And based on Dave's pattern of behavior, you'd be right. Being incarcerated had become a way of life for Dave. So, he decided he was going to make a name for himself on the inside." He'd always be at the top of the food chain. He'd always be calling the shots.

Unfortunately, the mentality of survival at all costs, fueled by hate worked against him. It made him more venomous which, in turn, made life in prison even more unbearable.

“Prison is a hate factory..." Dave said. “It's like high school with knives."

After completing his 10-year sentence Dave promised himself he'd never live behind bars again. But that didn't mean he was planning on changing his ways. Without an alteration in habits, mindset, or behavior, he had no plan to live a crime-free life once he got out - it was what he knew - and what he was good at. So, unfortunately, he went right back to dealing drugs shortly after being released.

"Jails aren't conducive to change, prisons aren't conducive to change," he says. "They aren't designed to be."

The same habits and behaviors he'd mastered through crime, deceit and manipulation were still there and hadn't changed. His pattern of behavior caught up to him again.

As the police closed in on him during a high-speed chase, Dave attempted to take his own life - knowing if caught, he would spend the rest of his life in prison, a place he'd promised himself he would never go back to.

He failed and was arrested yet again, which was his breaking point. Dave knew deep-down that he wanted more out of life than this revolving door of crime, death, and hate. But up to this point, he hadn't been able to break his own destructive cycle. Why would anyone give him another chance? He didn't deserve one.

He wanted to change, but didn't know how to take that first step.

“When someone is ready to change their life and says, 'I need to do something different, but I need help?' Where do you send them?" Dave said.

Faced with a life sentence (another 29 years) Dave begged for leniency in court. He'd heard about an innovative program for individuals just like him, and pleaded with the judge to be sent there as a last chance to change his life.

The judge heard his pleas and gave him a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend the program. If Dave was able to complete it, he would not have to return to prison.

"Plead guilty for all charges and I'm going to send you to Delancey Street," Dave remembers the judge saying. "If you get kicked out, I've got you for the rest of your life."

Dave couldn't take the deal fast enough. But he also quickly learned that Delancey Street, a long-term (minimum of two years) peer-to-peer life-skills and vocational training program with a focus on social responsibility, wasn't going to be easy. At first, he started sliding back into his old ways of communicating — being arrogant, pompous, giving in to his ego and encouraging others around him to slip back into negative behaviors.

One day, Dave exploded at his program leader, telling the man that he'd never get what it was like to have served time.

“He said, 'I'm not here to tell you about your past, I'm here to tell you about how to change your life,'" Dave remembers.

That was a moment he'll never forget. It helped him realize he wanted to help others, too.

Dave was mandated to stay at Delancey Street for two years. He voluntarily stayed for eight, and ran Delancey's Los Angeles facility as its Managing Director for the last 5 years of his stay.

Today, Dave is the managing director of The Other Side Academy, another long-term residential training center similar to Delancey Streetthat helps people exiting prison, or recovering from a substance use disorder, completely transform their lives and reconnect with their communities.

Dave's past embodies the sobering rate of recidivism in America. Through his own experience he knew that the programs for people who had been convicted weren't working. 30, 60, and 90-day programs aren't enough to create wholly impactful change. With recidivism as high as 70 percent (or more) among those released from prison, Dave knew that people were leaving those programs and going right back to a life of crime.

So, in 2015, when he became the Managing Director of The Other Side Academy, he vowed to change that.

The focus of the program isn't just about abstinence from substance use — which Dave calls the easy part — it involves a complete change in character and behavior. The staff helps the program participants develop integrity and accountability through work and intense peer-feedback as they run the social enterprises that generate the revenue to support the operational costs of the program.

So far, the methodology is working.

Thanks to constant peer-to-peer feedback, the opportunity to stay in the facility long-term, and a focus on underlying behavior change, within its first three years of operation, 98 percent of the program's participants have not re-offended.

The Other Side Academy doesn't take any money from outside sources — the program generates it through business enterprises they've created in-house and through partnerships with nonprofits like Stand Together.

Stand Together is an organization that seeks to break the cycle of poverty in America by developing and investing in innovative solutions that target problems at the community level. The Other Side Academy participated in Stand Together's Catalyst Program in 2018, which provides business management training and helps social entrepreneurs develop a vision for growth based on their core capabilities and partners with them to increase their impact.

Today, Stand Together is helping The Other Side Academy expand to serve more individuals in their comprehensive and immersive program by investing to help them purchase a new 160-room facility, which will enable them to grow their programming, serve and employ more individuals, and build new social enterprises.

For Dave, that assistance allows him to give as many people as possible a new lease on life.

“I spent the first half of my life helping people die," he says. "I intend on spending the rest of it helping them live."

To learn more about Dave Durocher and the Other Side Academy, check out the video below:

Stand Together invests in solving the biggest problems facing our nation today in order to unleash the potential in every individual, regardless of their zip code. By supporting social entrepreneurs like Durocher who're close to social issues like recidivism and have developed innovative solutions, the company is helping combat these issues in ways that are working. You can get involved and find a transformative org near you at Standtogetheragainstpoverty.org.

To find out which of these organizations supports your values, take this quizhere and let Stand Together do the searching for you.

Jim and Melinda Hollandsworth weren't planning to start a nonprofit. They just wanted to help a few kids with their homework.

When the Hollandsworths sponsored a local family for Christmas through their church in 2008, they thought it would just be a one-time thing. But when they saw that the large family's mobile home was only four miles from their Atlanta-area home, they realized they were essentially neighbors.

After their visit with the family, they wanted to come back, but not just because they enjoyed the family's company — they realized the family was living in suburban poverty, and wanted to see if there were more ways they could help them.

All photos via Path Project.

So, they randomly dropped by for a visit every so often. Eventually, the kids started sharing what was going on in their lives.

"The biggest thing that stuck out to us," says Melinda, “was that the younger kids could all tell you what they wanted to be when they grew up—a teacher, a doctor, whatever their big dream was. But when they talked about their older siblings, it was a different story. They would share of one who'd been deported, one who was in jail, and an older sister who was still high school age who had already had one, maybe two babies. So, there was a disconnect there."

The high school graduation rate of students in that neighborhood was a startling 33%.

During one of their visits, Maria, a 6th grader in the family asked Melinda if she could help her with her homework because her mom and dad didn't speak English. Since she had a background in education, Melinda looked over her school work and realized that she was already failing in most subjects. Maria was not on a path to succeed.

The Hollandsworths discovered that this was a big gap, not just for Maria, but for other kids in the family. To fill this need, they offered to come and tutor them once a week.

They started with one family, but word spread quickly. Before they knew it, the Hollandsworths had started a community center.

Jim and Melinda Hollandsworth.

Before long, more and more kids started showing up to get help with homework each week, and Jim and Melinda found themselves scrambling to keep up with the demand. They enlisted friends as volunteer tutors, and the kids kept coming.

After a few months, the mobile park property manager said he had a vacant mobile home that had been the site of a drug-related shooting. He asked the Hollandsworths if they wanted to use the home for their after-school programs.

That was the first time that Jim and Melinda thought that they could do more than just help a few kids with homework. But they also knew that if they took this opportunity, they had to be all in.

Early on, a 6th grader named Sophia had asked them, "When are you gonna leave?" These kids were used to people coming into their neighborhood, doing good things, and then never coming back. The Hollandsworths knew that in order to make a real difference, they needed to be there long term, to build relationships with these kids and their families.

So, they made the commitment and renovated the mobile home into a community center.

When a volunteer asked to work full-time and other mobile parks asked for them to launch programs, The Path Project was born.

Word began to spread not only among the families in this mobile park, but among mobile park owners as well. They saw how the Hollandsworths' after-school program was helping kids stay in school and on a healthy path, and they wanted the same for their communities.

First group of Path Project kids who graduated high school.

One volunteer said she wanted to make the tutoring work her full-time job. But Jim and Melinda, a pastor and a teacher, knew practically nothing about fundraising or starting a nonprofit. They had to learn as they went.

Today, The Path Project is a full-fledged 501c3 nonprofit with a staff of 24 people.

Jim left his job as a pastor in 2013 to focus full time on the project, which has expanded to eight mobile park neighborhoods in Georgia and Tennessee. The Path Project is privately funded through individuals, churches, and businesses, and they still utilize plenty of volunteers. They also partner directly with local schools and with organizations like Stand Together, whose goal is to help grassroots social entrepreneurs break the cycle of poverty. Stand Together is helping The Path Project with scaling their work in order to reach as many children and communities as possible with their relationship-based model.

The project has grown, but the foundation of its success remains the same: Getting to know your neighbors.

The Path Project is a prime example of what can happen when people get to know their neighbors and seek meaningful solutions to community problems together.

The project's recent stats speak to its success. According to The Path Project's 2018 annual report, 100% of the 4th and 5th graders in the project's first community are on track academically (using United Way metrics on grades, behavior, and attendance). Between 2011 and 2016, graduation rates jumped from 35% to 88%, and around 90% of students in that mobile park are currently on track to graduate—an improvement of 100% in the past four years.

Infographic courtesy of Path Project

The Hollandsworths will tell you that the road to The Path Project's success hasn't always been easy. Melinda says there were a lot of small, scary steps they had to take along the way. But the key was to show up, keep showing up, and focus on building relationships.

"I think it's important for us all to be good neighbors," says Jim. "And we do that by showing up, meeting new people, and asking questions. And if something comes out of that, then great. But at the very least, you have the opportunity to be a good neighbor. I think that's what we're all supposed to be."

Stand Together invests in solving the biggest problems facing our nation today in order to unleash the potential in every individual, regardless of their zip code. By supporting social entrepreneurs like Jim and Melinda who're close to social issues like poverty and academic challenges, new solutions are developed that are working,You can get involved and find a transformative org near you atStandtogetheragainstpoverty.org.

To find out which of these organizations supports your values, take this quizhere and let Stand Together do the searching for you.

A decade ago, Todd and Kaley Jones couldn't imagine a life without drugs and alcohol.

When Kaley left a 9-month inpatient drug treatment program at age 19, she was terrified. She went digging through her makeup bags at home, hoping maybe she had stashed away some drugs so she could numb her fear. No luck.

Later, she walked into a 12-step meeting and saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said, "SOBER." Kaley was mortified. Why wasn't he embarrassed? Wasn't it a shameful thing to have had a drug or alcohol problem? But the man, Todd, wasn't ashamed. “He was happy and he was laughing," says Kaley, "and he told me about Phoenix."

Kaley and Todd Jones. All photos courtesy of The Phoenix.

The Phoenix is a sober community built around an active lifestyle. It was founded by Scott Strode back in 2006. Mountaineering and boxing played a huge role in Strode maintaining long-term sobriety, so he created a program that combines physical activity with a sober community.

Todd, who now manages the Colorado Springs chapter, was first sent to The Phoenix from a drug court judge's referral. "I had no idea what to do with myself when I first got sober," he says. "When I showed up at Phoenix, I had this tremendous sense of belonging. There were other people who were trying to do the next right thing for themselves like I was. I felt this tremendous sense of safety. And one of the strongest things was they were really excited that I was there, and welcomed me back."

But the program's strength is about more than a community of people who love sports. It shows its members they're capable of overcoming their obstacles. "When you tie into a climbing rope for the first time and make it to the top of the wall, it starts to make you feel like you can beat your addiction," Strode said in a YouTube video.

Kaley, who now serves as the National Engagement Officer for The Phoenix, says that many treatment programs focus on getting sober, but not on what comes next. The Phoenix answers the "what's next" question by providing empowering activities for people in recovery as well as understanding, supportive peers to do them with.

All Phoenix instructors are people in recovery themselves, and that community makes all the difference.

A Phoenix event might be anything from a rock climbing excursion to a weight lifting session to a cooking class. The only requirement for joining a Phoenix event is that you've been clean and sober for 48 hours. All events are free for individuals, including instruction and all necessary equipment. Participants are asked to sign a team member agreement, which says they will be inclusive and supportive of fellow team members, and that they are dedicated to a sober lifestyle.

Todd Jones

Kaley says they leave that last part vague on purpose. "We understand that sometimes people will relapse and they need to have a home to come back to. Things happen, and we're always going to be here no matter what their journey into recovery looks like."

Todd says that all Phoenix instructors are in recovery themselves, so they know what it's like to walk the journey to sobriety and can offer support through sharing their own lived experiences.

If an instructor in recovery can't be found, Kaley says they will always have a peer facilitator, "so that if someone does walk in with 48 hours sober, and they're terrified, and they don't know how to stay sober, there's someone right there who can say, 'I have walked that path. It takes courage to open the door and come in here. I'm glad you're here. This is what I did to stay sober,' and they can share that on an individual basis."

Phoenix programs are always free for individuals, thanks to donations, grants, and partnerships with organizations like Stand Together.

Thanks to support from Stand Together, a social change organization that supports the country's most innovative social entrepreneurs working to directly address the problems that cause poverty and homelessness, The Phoenix has been able to expand exponentially. Stand Together has worked with The Phoenix to secure funding, solidify and fine tune its business processes and scale the organization.

Kaley says scaling has been hugely important since The Phoenix has seen "explosive" growth in the past two years. In 2016, they were located in five cities. By the end of 2018, they'd expanded to 33 cities. "The reality that drug addiction and alcoholism is ravaging this country has become very apparent," says Kaley, "and we have a solution."

Kaley points out that 86% of Phoenix team members remain sober if they are consistently active in their programs, which is an impressive number. (According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the average relapse rate for substance abuse disorder is 40-60%.)

The Phoenix changed the course of Kaley and Todd's life—and thousands of others as well.

It's helped more than 26,000 people on their journey to and through sobriety. And each person brings their own unique story with them — recognizing and embracing that is also how the program fights the stigma of addiction. It's helping people realize that their unique experiences can be used to help other people find their identity in their new sober lifestyle.

Kaley says that joining The Phoenix drastically changed her perception of her own journey. "I met all of these other people who were enjoying their life and proudly owning their recovery," she says. "And it was the first time I felt any hope that maybe I could have a life beyond hiding in basements talking about my problem. And that I could just truly be who I am and help others to find the hope that I was given."

“It's a lifeline for me," she adds. "Even on the good days, I need to check in. And on the bad days, I need to check in even more. And there is always space for me. I used a lot because I didn't ever think I was enough. I just wasn't good enough. And at Phoenix I always feel like I'm enough."

"Recovery had never been appealing to me," Todd says. "And Phoenix made recovery very appealing. And it helped me change my identity from addict, alcoholic, felon, to a Cross-fitter, rock climber, husband, person in long-term recovery as I grew within the program and the community." Todd and Kaley have each been sober for nine years and have been married for four.

Here's to The Phoenix for fighting the stigma that often accompanies addiction, and for providing empowerment and support along the road to recovery.

Stand Together invests in solving the biggest problems facing our nation today in order to unleash the potential in every individual, regardless of their zip code. By supporting social entrepreneurs like Strode who're close to social issues like addiction and have developed innovative solutions, the company is helping combat these issues in ways that are working. You can get involved and find a transformative org near you at Standtogetheragainstpoverty.org.

To find out which of these organizations supports your values, take this quiz here and let Stand Together do the searching for you.