Blog Post: Trying to make a difference

In 1989, I began my educational career at Florida State University.  After graduating from Florida State in 1993 with a BS in Criminology, I entered Nova Southeastern University School of Law in the fall of 1994. Being extremely unprepared for this new level of learning, my first year of law school ended abruptly in an academic dismissal due to poor performance.  My academic dismissal from law school left me feeling bitter and without direction.  As a result of poor decision making skills, lack of job readiness, and inadequate life skills, I found myself struggling financially while working two hourly wage jobs, neither of which came as a result of my "higher education”.  At this point in my life, I decided to make a life change in search of a new direction…my purpose.  This new direction would require new “life skills”.  In August of 1997, at the age of 25, I pledged my life to serve God and country for four years in the United States Air Force.  Enlisting in the United States Military proved to be the most humbling and challenging experience of my life.  The military brought forth qualities that lay dormant earlier in my life such as courage, honor, discipline, excellence, hard-work, and an overwhelming desire to succeed.  With these qualities hard at work in my life, I took advantage of every opportunity available.  As a result, I graduated with honors from Abilene Christian University with a Master of Science in Organizational and Human Resource Development.

Eager to apply my newly acquired “life skills”, I obtained an honorable discharge from the Air Force and moved to Dallas Texas.  This move was fueled with the hopes of securing a high paying job with a high level of responsibility.  Upon arriving in Dallas, I noticed the same inadequacies in the youth of Dallas that once plagued my own life.  Consequently, instead of sitting idly by and watching the result of poor decision making, lack of job readiness, and inadequate life skills play themselves out in the lives of these young people like the impending danger of a slow moving train of despair towards a stalled vehicle on the railroad tracks of life; I decided to effect change.

The Y.E.L.S. (Youth Employment Life Skills) training program was born out of a sincere desire to educate youth in the city of Dallas with the necessary basic skills to obtain and maintain employment.  Y.E.L.S. operates with six essential goals in mind; to improve communication skills, to develop leadership skills, to promote self awareness, to promote community awareness, to achieve job readiness, and to deter juvenile behavior.  Y.E.L.S. services youth in the southern sector of Dallas.  Many of the youth that participate in the Y.E.L.S. program are considered at-risk.  Currently, the term at-risk has several different meanings, but the bottom line is that these youth need our help.  It is amazing how a few corporate sponsors, and a few volunteers can make a difference in the lives of youth who have very little.

If you or your organization would like to contribute to the Y.E.L.S. program contact John Willis at 214-418-6345