She positively influences lives of young people
Victoria Marron is executive director of HSI Initiatives at Lee College, where she also is STEM grant director and Puente Project coordinator.
“My grandmother was very protective of me. I was never really let out of the house unless I found a way out. Those times that I did, one of the guys I dated before my husband was heavily gang involved. I was very naive to understand what that was, what that meant, what he did. I just knew he was a high school dropout.
“But there was something about that population always around me. I felt like one life decision just kept messing them up, and that they were better than that. I knew there was more of an opportunity, more things out there for them. And that would always resonate with me. If you could just get out of the hood or the community or have an opportunity at education, you could give so much more back.”
Later in life, through jobs as a juvenile probation officer and gang intervention counselor, she was able to help many such individuals. But not every story had a happy ending.
“There was a particular young man named Julian. He was really trying to straighten up his life. He was not on probation, but he worked with one of my best friends who was with the mayor’s anti-gang office. He would come to the classes I taught. He was planning to go to a military school in Galveston called Seaborne Challenge Corps.
“One evening after class, no one had come to pick him up. We kept expecting his family. So we ended up spending a couple hours with Julian, just talking and getting to know him. And he really touched my heart. He had a great personality. He had this vision of, ‘I’m going to make it. I’m going to go to this military school. I’m going to get this job. I’m going to do these great things.’ Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, he was murdered. He didn’t get a chance to see his vision become a reality.”
— Victoria Marron
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