Keep a Youth in YJAC from Being Tried as an Adult

Abbey Geater is organizing this fundraiser.

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Meet Trekeria!

Trekeria is a junior at Raleigh Egypt High School and a current member of the Youth Justice Action Council.

Trekeria was arrested when she was 15 and transferred to adult court under the Amy Weirich and Dan Micahel administrations on her 16th birthday. When she was transferred, the judge told her she was "a menace to society."

Since getting out, Trekeria has shown that she is anything but a menace to society. She is a powerful speaker and advocate (and a recent Keeper of the Dream Award winner from the National Civil Rights Museum!)- as well a genuinely kind, compassionate, and hilarious human. She has been a member of YJAC since October 2022 and since then has been advocating for a more restorative youth justice system in Shelby County - so that no young person has to experience what she had to.

Trekeria is an artist and a lover of music (especially Rod Wave). She also is an amazingly talented poet & writer. She completed a program with the Tennessee Shakespeare Company in 2021, where she discovered her love of poetry. She recently won Judge's Choice at her high school talent show for her performance of her poem, "Society."

Trekeria is someone who believes in the power of personal transformation because she’s experienced it herself. She is a crucial part of the YJAC family and is an asset to her community.

We are raising money for legal fees to support her in accessing adequate legal representation. YJAC's top Demand is to stop the practice of youth being tried as adults. What we know is that transferring youth to the adult criminal legal system does not keep us safer: youth in the adult system are less likely to receive rehabilitative services, more likely to be victims of violence, and are likely to come back to the community with more trauma than before and reenter the system. We believe that young people are more than their past, and we believe that young people deserve community - not isolation.

Please support us in keeping a member of our YJAC family in the community and saying enough is enough on transfering Black & Brown youth to the adult system in Shelby County.