Mark's Story

Mark's life was headed nowhere. He grew up in foster care, hardly knowing his birth parents. Angry and abandoned by the world, Mark instigated physical confrontations with classmates and authority figures. He was always in trouble at school and failed out of most of his classes. In the seventh grade, he was introduced to leaders from the Mott Haven Leadership Program, but he saw the program as a waste of time. Fearing that he was headed for a life of gangs, drugs and crime, a school counselor challenged Mark to try the program, and he signed up. Three years later, Mark is a different kid. He made a choice to better himself and prove that he could accomplish the challenges of the program. His grades improved and in his junior year of high school, he earns honors in many of his classes. Mark has also learned to channel his anger and frustrations, using them to drive him on to success rather than destruction. He controls his impulses to lash out and says his newfound self-control testifies of the benefit the Ranch Program has been in his life.

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