Susan Trieschmann

“… After I sold my catering business I was going to meetings with young offenders here in Evanston. At every single meeting I heard kids say they wouldn’t have done what they did if they had a job. And I was sick of hearing that story over and over again without having anywhere to send them for help.

“If we keep releasing them [from the system] with no job skills, the only skill they are taught is how to be a gang member. And I don’t care what kind of paper you use for a résumé, no one is hiring a kid with a felony right now unless they have help.

“So [Curt’s Café] was built to provide those jobs … the majority of our kids working here have been in and out of the criminal-justice system.

“It costs [the state] about $85,000 for every kid in [juvenile correctional facilities.] And 85 percent are coming back to the system within three years.

“In our program about 2 percent of the kids recidivate and it costs us anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 per kid. For some it costs less than $2,000 …

“So much has been stripped away from these kids; all dignity and respect has been stripped away. We work a lot here on rebuilding that. We let them know, ‘You are worth the time, you are worth the clean clothes, you are worth more than you realize.’”

Susan Trieschmann
Evanston, Illinois