Teenage inmates at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverside welcomed an insurance broker to hundreds of celebrity athletes as a guest speaker on Friday, Sheriff Vincent F. DeMarco said.
The speaker, Richard Salgado, owner of Costal Advisors, LLC, also known as “Big Daddy” visited the inmates as part of Sheriff DeMarco’s Youth Tier Initiative, which launched back in September 2011. The program aims to promote “the successful transition of incarcerated youth, between the ages of 16 to 19, from jail to community life,” the Sheriff’s Department said. Youth enrolled in the initiative receive mentoring and educational services, as well as engaging in a regimented routine that “promotes discipline and good habits.”
Salgado spoke Friday in the jail’s chapel and discussed how he went from being a poor high school student to a success. He also spoke of how certain people he met along his life journey influenced his life choices. “It’s never too late to form new relationships. I was no angel, but I turned things around,” Salgado said. “You can too.”
After speaking with the teens, Salgado sat down with Sheriff DeMarco to discuss collaborative efforts to reform the incarcerated youth. “We’re not in the business of wharehousing kids in jail,” DeMarco said. “We’re hoping to change the course of their lives…today Rich offered them a road map to making some of their dreams a reality,” he said
“He’s living the dream,” DeMarco said of the insurance agent. “We thank him for sharing it with these incarcerated minors.”
Comments