Here is my summer job: mentoring five young men aged 20 to 28 on how to rejoin the community after serving time in prison for s** crimes. I will live in a 6 bedroom house and teach these men community skills. I am a 25 year old female on summer break from college.

This is what we will accomplish this summer: finding each one a job and house or apartment, enrolling them into college or GED classes for the fall, getting each one health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, finding each guy a primary care doctor, registration to vote, getting a driver’s license, vehicles, and insurance, joining a church, getting them any needed assistance like food stamps, teaching them how to eat healthy, keep their bodies healthy and personal hygiene, getting each one established with a counselor who will help with the adjustment, teaching them appropriate ways to express their s********, open each of them a checking, savings, and investment account along with me teaching them how to manage money, budget, and finances, and reuniting them with family who will encourage and love them. A guy hasna 5 year old daughter innfoster care and he desparatly wants her back so he can raise her. I hope to have them reunited by the end of summer when he has a stable house and job andnshe can start kindergarten andnstay in one school. A girl needs her daddy. And this summer, we will work on finding these gentlemen mates. Each man will also be taught how to apologize to their victims, if they chose to.

One rule of this program, however, is that these men are not allowed to m*********, even in the privacy of their own bedrooms or showers. That is a rule I won’t follow, because it is inhumane to ask a young male to give up self soothing and s***** discovery through m***********. And people m********* in communities. As long as they are quiet and do it in the privacy of their rooms, I would never report that guy.

And, of course, we are going to have fun! Daily walks in the park, movies, trips to the community pool, amusement parks, and a weekend long trip to the ocean (two of these guys have never seen the ocean!). I hope, by the end of summer, each of these men will become successful community members and never re-offend. And realize that they can be loved despite their pasts. I will offer these men hugs, security, and a person they can trust to talk to. I want to make a difference in people’s lives.

My cousin says I’m a horrible person for helping s** offenders. But I am helping them become secure so they don’t reoffend.