My name is Kale Anderson, and this is my hope.

I have spent the past three years of my life working with and ministering to at-risk teens. Beginning my work at a therapeutic boarding school in Missouri, I worked 80 hours a week building relationships and living as a mentor to kids who were heading down dangerous paths of self-destruction through suicidal depression, addiction, etc. I followed up 14 months of that by working at a lockdown juvenile detention center in Arkansas where I was placed on the sex-offender unit. Working with teen sex offenders, I learned that they were almost always sexually assaulted before they went on to sexually assault someone. Working with gang members, I learned that they often had been neglected and abused at home. And working in a facility that placed all of those kids into one building, with bare-bones staffing and barely a hope for rehabilitation was the norm in this country. I learned exactly how quickly we as a nation write off the most abused, neglected and downtrodden of our society and blame them for the environments they grow up in. We hold them in pens, as animals, separate and uncared for, out of sight, out of mind.

I carried on to another 15 months at the same therapeutic boarding school where I not only supervised and coached others, teaching them how to mentor better, I spent my time and energy revisiting policies and procedures, planning and cooperating in efforts to better the school itself. I did all of that for less than $22,000 a year, barely a living wage.

Politics aside, I care about people to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I ask for $5000 with few hopes of getting any money, and I am ok with that. I will figure out how to care about people with or without help. But I am asking you to partner with me as I pursue a legal education and learn to better advocate for the weak and disenfranchised of our societies. I have seen too much to merely be an idealist and am confident that following this path will better equip me to work with at-risk people groups, to advocate for change for a healthier society and to empower not just myself, but the people around me to take charge of their lives for the benefit of society as a whole.

I have shared the experiences of social workers and correctional professionals everywhere. I have stood between a home-made shank and the flesh it was made for. I have literally talked people off of ledges. I have been beaten and bruised, yelled at and spit on. I have experienced the reality of humanity.

I recognize that there are a million causes in the world worthy of your money, and harbor no hard feelings if you can't or don't want to give to mine. I will adapt and survive. But I would appreciate your votes of faith and confidence in my work. God knows it hasn't been for the money, (hence why I am asking for some help.) I haven't done it for the recognition or reward, but because of my passion in serving my community to the best of my ability. I sincerely believe that a legal education will help me to do that. I hope you can agree. Any amount of donation or support is appreciated, from a quarter to a prayer. Thank you for reading this and for your support as I endeavor to better serve my community and yours.