Before starting a jobs program for young people, Sheila Hightower did something few others do: She talked to prison inmates to find out why they had become involved in crime.
Hightower, who worked for more than 12 years as a correctional officer at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, recalls, “The inmates told me it was the lack of love, nothing to do, and no involvement from the people in the community that contributed to their continuation of crimes.” When a 16- or 17-year-old boy was incarcerated, she says she would think, “This is a life that could have been saved.”
The 34-year-old resident of Chicago Heights shakes her head. “I’m afraid, honestly afraid, for our children,” she says. “I want to get our kids on path. On the detour, there is only jail and graveyards.”
So in 1995, Hightower started her program, Hire a Teen for a Brighter Tomorrow, and the teenagers she has helped confirm her methods. Says 17-year-old Seneca Bell of Ford Heights: “Drugs have a lot of influence where I live. I can’t give in to them, and (Hightower) lets me know how to stay on track.”
“It’s a good program for teenagers — to keep them out of trouble and off the streets,” says Tyra Willingham, 17, of Park Forest. “I probably would have gone another direction without the program.”
Hire a Teen targets 13- to 17-year-olds for jobs that include baby-sitting, laundry, yard work and house cleaning. When not working, they play softball and basketball and spend time talking, often at parks in Chicago Heights. All the money the teens earn goes directly to them.
“The only thing I get is the gratification of knowing that one less kid is on the streets,” she says.
Hightower, a single mother, pays for rakes, shears, lawnmowers, snow blowers, hedge trimmers, T-shirts, balls, bats, basketballs and any other supplies out of her pocket.
“I’m a mother to all kids,” says Hightower, who has three children — Sheena, 16, Michelle, 10, and R.J., 5. “If I get a dollar, my kids get half and the other kids get a quarter.”
Hightower wasn’t looking to start a program when she took Sheena to a enroll in a youth employment program three years ago. But Hightower, with a job at Stateville Correctional Center, made too much money to meet eligibility requirements for the program. She decided right then to start a program for teens like her daughter. It is now offered year-round, and Hightower estimates she has worked with more than a thousand teens through the program. Teens learn of the program through local newspapers, the Park Forest cable access station and soon will see it on the Chicago Heights local access station.
The program has led Hightower to a job as director of constituents for State Rep. George Skully (D-Flossmoor).
“I thought of asking Sheila to join our staff because of her dedication in helping kids,” Skully says. “I think it’s very important to get people like Sheila who work to keep kids busy and give them a sense of productivity. To maintain ethical and moral standards, kids need the satisfaction of getting paid for a good day’s work.”
Working for Skully, Hightower assists primarily elderly people. They may be going through rough times, find themselves ineligible for food stamps, have housing problems, and need someone to listen to them, she explains. “I listen and send up a prayer,” she says.
In addition, she is hoping to start a program with Chicago Heights Ald. Dollie Helsel (4th) that would raise funds to find jobs for youths as well as to hire supervisors who would also function as counselors for the teens.
“Our plans are not completed,” Helsel says, “but we’d like to find meaningful things for kids to do to keep them off the streets, maybe help elderly people or others in need, which enhances feeling good about themselves and mushrooms into lifelong behaviors.”
Hightower’s motivation for all this philanthropy stems from a rocky childhood.
“I’ve seen things no one should see,” she admits. Raised in Chicago Heights, surrounded by drugs and crime, she watched her father shoot up drugs when she was 9.
“Most of my relatives are locked up,” she says. “They are not bad people. They just want the easy way out.”
Hightower has been working since she was 13 and says, from experience, “Kids respect money more when they earn it.”
Roman “Rocky” Bounds, 16, of Park Forest believes the Hire a Teen program really changed him.
“I wouldn’t say I was lazy. I just didn’t feel like doing anything,” he says. “Now I’m used to working. I hop up and do it.”
Seneca Bell says he has learned through the program that “you can work with people — no matter what they look like.”
As for Hightower, she’s studying psychology part time at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, bringing home grades that are scrutinized by her children.
“They see A’s and B’s,” Hightower says. “I had no choice but to go back to school. Children learn by example.”
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To hire a teen or enroll in the program, call Hightower at 708-379-5600.
