Family Gateway has taken on a huge challenge — eliminate child homelessness by 2017. To do this, the organization founded by the late Mayor Annette Strauss decided that it had graduated from the days of Celebrity Waiter Luncheons and needed to up the ante.
Don and Ana Carty (File photo)
Indeed it has. On Friday, November 7, at The Ritz-Carlton, Co-Chairs Beth and Ron Hall along with Honorary Co-Chairs Ana and Don Carty have arranged for the “Gateway To Opportunity Luncheon” featuring Andre Norman as the keynote speaker, along with “art created by the homeless children of Family Gateway.”
While you probably know all the locals involved, Andre has a tale to tell. His father was in prison for drug dealing. His stepfather had spent time in jail for bank robbery. Instead of school, Andre preferred hanging around the streets of Boston. Eventually, he followed the path of his father and stepfather, ending up in prison for armed robbery and armed home invasion. Andre showed leadership in prison, but not the type you’d put on a resume. He became a prison gang leader resulting in his being transferred from prison to prison “because they could not handle me, and I didn’t care.”
That last stay in solitary confinement allowed him the time to realize that change was needed. He had an epiphany and decided the successful people attended college and got educated. But Andre didn’t decide on just any old school. No, he set his sights on Harvard. After all, he was from Boston and Harvard was in Boston, so . . . A first attempt at GED classes was frustrating and not-so-successful.
Then he “met a Jewish Rabbi, who became a huge mentor. “He didn’t want to reform me, he just let me sit with him while he taught, and I attended counseling to get my head straight.”
After 14 years, he had his GED and got out of prison in 1999. Eventually he attended Boston College and has “lectured at Harvard Divinity School, Northeastern University, Tufts and MIT to name some local educational institutions.”
Andre was a child who didn’t find help until it was almost too late. Family Gateway’s goal is to get to the Andres and Andreas of Dallas before they make that first wrong turn by providing them with mentors, security and hope.