Change A life

Alex grew up down the street from College Bound Dorchester’s Log School where he’d often play basketball with friends as a boy. The second oldest of five children raised by their mother, whose father was absent, Alex found himself as a teenager without a role model and longing for acceptance. By ninth grade, he lost interest in school completely and dropped out of high school. 

Alex, or “Ace” as his former gang members used to call him, was running the streets with a new crew and committed a series of misdemeanors and felonies, including possession of a firearm, armed robbery and kidnapping, just to fit in. “The streets were my life,” says Alex. At the age of 17, his choices eventually led him to move upstate and out of his mother’s house to the inside of an eight by eight foot cinderblock cell. Alex spent the first eight years of his daughter’s life incarcerated.  

He is continuing to build a relationship with his daughter Alixia, who lives with her mother in Brockton. Alex has been free for six years and is committed to getting an education. With support from College Bound Dorchester, Alex earned his HiSET (GED equivalency) and now has a certificate in Practical Electricity at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology.