Hope House for me has always been a

constant. Since I'm 15 has always been a

home for me. When I lived at Hope House

when I was uh you know a young teenager,

there were some very good examples of

you know I had some older brothers in

Hope House that were in college. At the

time I was in high school, but there

were guys in the community that were in

high school, college, a couple were in

law school at the time. and seeing that

when you're younger and you're going

through, you know, whatever your

personal struggles are, it's good to

have people to emulate. Life continues

and you can get out of the rut you're

in. So, being part of Hope House, I like

I saw that I had those examples and I

committed myself to try and provide that

example for the guys, you know. So, um,

you know, after I left Hope House, I

went to college. I graduated college,

went on to law school, I worked at the

district attorney's office, and it's

always been important to me. You know, I

would come home on college break. I

would do volunteer the whole time. I

would uh run around do a lot of the

Christmas shopping for a father and the

guys for the house. Me and one of my

other Hope House brothers, we did that

every year really until I was working

full-time and couldn't do it anymore. My

law school graduation diploma is hanging

in the living room with everybody else's

diplomas. If you go to the third floor

living room, you you know when you're 15

and looking around and you see what's

possible. And you know, I wanted to just

be able to give back. And now I feel

like I give back quite a bit. For me,

what makes Hope House special is that I

remember when I was 15 and I lived here.

And when you're 15 years old, it's very

hard to see. For me anyway, it was very

hard to see 16, 17, 18. And you just

kind of think like, oh, life's over.

I've screwed it up so much. And

really,

the guys here now, you know, the

population here has gotten a little bit

older, but the problems have gotten more

severe. You know, it's more than just

like dopey kids in high school doing

stupid things. Now, I know there's real

struggle. There's real problems with

addiction. But even these guys, this is

a safe harbor for them. And look, I come

back. Uh, a lot of my brothers come

back. I have friends here, uh, people

that I used to live with now, lawyers,

teachers, professionals,

and they all come back. They all serve

as some sort of an example. And I think

it's good for the guys to know that even

if you're here and you're 30, 40, that

it's not over. One of the things as a

member of the board I think that we

should stress and explain to the

community is that everybody that helps

the guys at Hope House, right? You go to

the Christmas dinner, there's a thousand

people at this dinner and they're all

given to these guys at Hope House. But

these guys at Hope House are donating

thousands of hours a year backpack

pirates, Christmas magic in the

community. It the ability to give back.

That's part of the healing process. And

it all it becomes addicting where these

guys can't wait to help out, you know.

So like Christmas magic, they're

donating Christmas presents to thousands

of families on Long Island. All those

gifts are wrapped, transported, and

that's like a lot of the guys here

spending all those hours making that

happen. Same thing with Backpack

Pirates, you know, like so I think it's

important for the community to know that

they're not just giving to the guys here

so the guys here can work on themselves.

Part of them working on themselves is

giving back to the community. So it's

really it's like very symbiotic

relationship with giving and it goes a

long way.