Inmates at Soledad State Prison in California banded together to raise over $30,000 to help the family of Syon Green pay for his school tuition at an exclusive prep school for boys in California.
Roughly 1,100 men contributed to the fund for Green, while a non-profit organization donated the remaining portion of the money. Inmates donated their wages, while others sold art and donated their earnings, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. One inmate kicked in $100, a month’s worth of wages, according to CNN.
The men were participants of a reading program launched by Palma High School, the elite prep school Green attended, in conjunction with the prison’s Correctional Training Facility (CTF). Johnny Howe, an inmate, contacted the high school in 2016 to start the program to study literature with other inmates and Palma students while discussing one another’s lives, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Ted Gray and Jason Bryant, who are inmates at the facility, took up the plight to give back about four years ago after studying the camaraderie that took place in a Korean POW camp during one of the literary sessions.
“We need to start a scholarship and help a young man who doesn’t have the ability to go to Palma,” Gray told the Chronicle.
The two insisted they would have a more significant impact by not spreading the funds thinly.
“Instead of spreading our donation an inch deep and a mile wide,” Bryant said. “We wanted to go an inch wide and a mile deep and have a fundamental impact on one young man’s life, change the trajectory of his entire life.”
Jim Michelleti, the teacher responsible for implementing the program at Palma, received a phone call from the men asking how they could give back to the school.
“They said, ‘We value you guys coming in. We’d like to do something for your school. Can you find us a student who needs some money to attend Palma,’” Michelleti told the Chronicle.
Green, a recent-graduate of Palma High School, suffered a life-changing event during his sophomore year at the Catholic school in Salinas, California. Because of an unforeseen medical emergency for both parents, the young man’s family had to use the money saved for his $10,000 yearly tuition at Palma to pay the expenses.
Gray and Bryant decided to team up with the school to help Green, a teen they had never met.
Green began to attend the weekly book club sessions at the correctional facility after receiving the money but he said initially he was nervous about a trip to the prison.
“Going in, I definitely was nervous,” he said, “but once I got inside the facility, there was an instant feeling of being welcome. I felt at home, which is weird to say.”
Even Green's parents were invited to join the sessions in an attempt to build a community around the men who invested in their son’s future.
Bryant expressed his gratitude to the family saying that they could've opted to not interact with the inmates.
“Here’s the interesting thing,” Bryant said. “We’re locked up, most of us had life sentences, the family could have just said, ‘Oh, thanks for the help and see you later.’ But Syon’s parents were truly remarkable people.”
“They would bring him in to receive coaching, how to have a responsible attitude, cast a vision for his future, give us space to hold him accountable for his grades. They trusted us to invest in their son,” he concluded.
Green is now a freshman at The Academy of Art University. He's a broadcast major and plays basketball at the institution. The now-college student still visits the Soledad Correctional Facility.
Bryant, who had served 20 years in prison for an armed robbery that resulted in a person's death, had his sentence commuted in March, according to CNN. During his prison sentence, he earned a bachelor's degree and two masters while running leadership training programs for inmates.
