(Image source from: scholarships.com)

A Bay Area college freshman is able to attend the Academy of Art University after getting financial help from an unlikely source- prisoners in California.

19 year old Syon Green is experiencing his freshman year at the Academia of Art University in San Francisco. He was involved in Prison ministry in his sophomore year. The opportunity was made possible after he volunteered to be a part of Palma High School’s Prison Ministry Program.

During the program, Jason Brynant, an inmate who at the time was serving his 20th year at Soledad Correctional Facility, learned the student needing help paying his private Catholic school tuition. At the time, Green and his family were going through a hard time paying for his college tuition fees due to personal financial constraints. The inmate wanted to support Green as a payback for his hard work and service at prison. Bryant says it was a collective effort on the part of he and his fellow inmates who each earn 8 cents an hour for prison labor. It took the inmates 3 years to raise 30,000 dollars to help Green.

Earlier this year, California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of Bryant and his co-defendant Ted Gray for creating scholarship through their creative restorative opportunities and programs organization. Syon Green is the scholarship’s first recipient.

Green believes that he would like to see more of these types of programs throughout the prison system.

By Meena Atmakuri