Page 44 - BusinessWest February 21, 2022

I Found Light Against All Odds and Its Founder and CEO,
Stefan Davis
This Unique Nonprofit Helps At-risk Youths Find a Way Out of Darkness
SBy George O’Brien
tefan Davis has a scar on his leg.
The mark was left by his stepfather, who lashed at him with a
hook of some sort, as he recalls, tearing at the skin. While Davis remembers that physical attack, one of many he endured, he also never forgot what his stepfather then said — and the emotional
trauma it created: “if you ever tell anyone about this ... you’ll never say anything to anyone again.”
Actually, Davis has several scars. There’s also one above his right eye from when he was beaten out of the gang he joined — the Bloods. And there’s another one on his right wrist from when things became so dark in his life, he attempted suicide.
“I was done ... I was ready to give up,” said Davis, now an educator, football coach, and behavioral interventionist for at-risk students and families at Springfield High School of Science and Technology. “And I show this scar to people who are in darkness and think there is no other way out.”
Davis made it out of his dark place — through the help of others, but mostly his own strong will — and into the light. And today, he helps others bearing different types of scars — everything from homelessness to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, to seemingly insurmountable life challenges
— do the same through a nonprofit agency he created called, appropriately
Leah Martin Photography
enough, I Found Light Against All Odds.
Its stated mission is to “provide high-risk youth and families with the tools
and opportunities to break the cycle of poverty, desperation, and dependence that dominates their lives, enabling them to become contributing members of our society.”
These tools vary, but the most important one is the sheer will and determination it takes to overcome the often very long odds against finding the light. And when you talk to people who have been helped and guided by Davis, or ‘Coach,’
as they all call him, they say he essentially coaxes it out of them, compelling them to find strength and determination they didn’t know they had.
That was certainly the case with
Destiny Cortez, who, as she was
entering her senior year at Sci-Tech,
found out that she was six weeks
pregnant. Graduation now became a
much steeper climb, she said, but ‘Coach’ helped her find the will to press on and handle all that life was throwing at her.
“He always gave me that push that no other teacher would,” she recalled. “And he’s been there for hundreds of students. There’s a lot of kids that were in his program who looked at him not as a teacher or as a coach, but as a father figure.”
Ethan Deleon, a current student at Sci-Tech, tells a similar story.
“Coach gives you that little sense of hope,” he said, adding that hope is often a missing ingredient in the lives of many young people having trouble seeing the light.
Before he launched the nonprofit agency, Davis created a the aptly named Fresh Start program, which would eventually draw praise from President Obama for its work to help students on the verge of dropping out of school. And he also hosted a show on Focus Springfield Community TV called Against
“
He always gave me that
push that no other teacher
would. And he’s been there for
hundreds of students. There’s
a lot of kids that were in his
program who looked at him
not as a teacher or as a coach,
but as a father figure.
”
44 FEBRUARY 21, 2022
BusinessWest