By Barbara Kessler, TJJD Communications —
Our Gainesville campus celebrated an achievement this past week that shows how innovation and teamwork are sparking amazing new opportunities for TJJD youths and staff.
The project began last year, after our Executive Director Shandra Carter challenged staff to come up with ideas that could improve rehabilitation or operations. She offered $1,000 to each of the three winners to seed their projects and received nearly 50 entries. That was a good omen! It confirmed what many already knew, that TJJD staffers are seriously committed to making their agency the best it can be.
All three projects are in progress. This is the story of one winner, Richard Williamson, a mental health counselor and supervisor at Gainesville SJCF, who proposed an extracurricular woodshop program in which selected youth would build playhouses that could be donated to the community.
The youth would learn usable skills, under the supervision of a construction expert and the campus would build connections to the community by donating the playhouses to the local nonprofit CASA program.
Carter wanted innovations that increased job skills and “Casas for CASA,” as Williamson dubbed this new enterprise, fit that plan. It helped fill a gap for younger youths who were not yet eligible for the school’s regular vocational programs but had time on the weekends for constructive activities.
To teach and supervise the youth, Williamson and former Volunteer Coordinator Kevin Hill enlisted volunteer Leon Munson. Once a foster youth himself, Munson runs a successful construction business in DFW and wanted to give back. He agreed to work with the youths on Saturdays and teach them how to use how to use drills and saws and assemble trusses and roof decks and such.
The first Casas for CASA project produced a top-notch doghouse that scaled up a tad more than initially planned and was easily suitable for an Irish Wolfhound or small pack of dogs. It was donated to the local nonprofit Mary Elizabeth Maternity Home, which successfully auctioned it off last fall. (The timing wasn’t right for the initial intended recipient CASA, which recommended the maternity home.
This spring youth built the second project, a 6 x 8-foot playhouse with realistic trimmings that could pass muster in the best of suburbs. CASA of North Texas auctioned it off last weekend for a robust $3,200! The money will help youth supported by CASA, which provides advocates for kids ensnared in court and custody cases.
It’s not hard to see the virtuous circle here. A few folks step up to do something new and it yields tangible and intangible results. TJJD youth learn valuable vocational and teamwork skills. The community, in turn, is able to help more young people (at CASA) with needed assistance.
But the story would be incomplete without telling you just how many people at TJJD and in Gainesville came together to make this new program work.
At the outset, JCO Danny Bailey cleaned and readied an unused, cobwebbed woodshop to create the necessary safe, clean space. It was a task. Next, Hill identified the skilled and easygoing Munson as the ideal volunteer mentor to shepherd the project and Munson agreed to help, even though the Gainesville State Juvenile facility is a 200-mile roundtrip from his DFW suburban home.
Supt. Darryl Anderson and Assistant Supt. Michelle Hawkins Washington opened doors and provided nudges to get the project off the ground. Gatehouse staff cheerfully checked tools in and out for the Saturday program. One OIG staffer, Cameron Hoberer, carried wood beams and supplies from the gatehouse to the vocational building, an uphill hike about two blocks long.
Deputy Executive Director Evan Norton, Career and Technical Education Manager Connie Simon and Gainesville SJCF welding instructor Denver Foster were consistently supportive, Williamson said. Several JCOs from Recreation, RSU and the dorms supervised youth participating in the Saturday workshops. Finally, Gainesville community members helped with transportation. The playhouse was sturdy and painted an elegant Historic Gray, but it was much too hulking to just be lopped onto a pickup truck. Joe Walter Lumber and Jared Croce provided a special vehicle to whisk it off to the auction site. Richard Williamson, if you know him, is a bit stoic. He’s not one to effuse about much. But even he concedes that Casas for CASA has been a successful endeavor this first year. It introduced the youths who participated to a special role model, taught them to maneuver tools and gave them a break from their daily routine.
“Boys usually like working with their hands and it provided that and they saw an idea become a reality through prosocial teamwork. They were proud of the finished playhouse and seemed pleased that it was going for a good cause,” Williamson said. “One youth was a former CASA client.”
