Troubled Teens Find Choice in Books

The following story was covered by CBS3 Springfield, about Bay Path students donating books, and bringing a new world of choices to young men who have been incarcerated. Watch the video on the CBS3 website.

What started as a box of donated books has become the gateway out of the ghetto for many incarcerated teens.

“For many of these young men, they don’t know a life outside of correctional facilities as an option of them,” says Reading Our Way Out founder Diane Hall.

Her vision of Bay Path forensic professor Diane Hall. The community outreach program that put books into the hands of some of Springfield’s troubled teens has gotten many of them back on track.

“Their confidence levels are really going up. Reading skills are improving and they’re starting to believe they can do it,” Hall says. “These young men are responding so well to having the college students come in and in a sense act as a mentor to them,” she says.

It all started with books. Popular series like Harry Potter, Twilight are in boxes, but a theme Diane says resonates most with the kids isn’t fairy tale wizardry.

“The young men are picking up on books that have an underdog theory,” she says.

They’re hoping to see themselves in those stories and some of them have a turnaround tale so remarkable, it’s the stuff books are made of.

Already, after a few once a month, one hour sessions, five kids have completed their GED. Three are now college students.

“It gives me more of an incentive to be able to go to college and do more things and help out youth like the college students had helped me out,” one students says.