Our dear friend Dr. Joe Marshall, Jr. was honored by the San Francisco 49ers at their home game on Christmas Eve for “Inspiring Change for Social Justice.”
Dr. Marshall shared: It was surreal to see my face on the Jumbotron and to hear 60,000 people cheering for you. They also gave Alive & Free a check for $10.000 and gave me two tickets to the Super Bowl-neither of which I had any advance knowledge of. Unreal. They really got me. It’s crazy to get accolades for doing something that you really love doing. Everyone knows I love working with the kids. And the Niners won the game big time. It was a great day for us. Happy New Year!
Dear Dr. Marshall: congratulations for your incredibly well-deserved recognition. It is a joy to know you and we are so grateful for all you do for the youth of San Francisco, and for your generous support for and the work of the USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice.
If you are not already well familiar with Dr. Marshall and his life-transforming work, please look through the Alive & Free website.
Dr. Marshall founded Alive & Free in 1987 with Jack Jacqua, a middle school counselor, as part of the Omega Boys Club-a nationally recognized youth development organization headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Tired of losing their students to drugs, guns, gangs, unwanted pregnancies or death, Marshall and Jacqua founded Alive & Free as a violence prevention program dedicated to keeping young people alive and free, unharmed by violence and free from incarceration. For more than 35 years, Alive & Free has provided young people with a community of support to build positive lives for themselves and to move into contributing roles in society. For more than 35 years, Dr. Marshall has helped young people to avoid peer pressure and situations that lead to violence, incarceration, or other negative outcomes like drug addiction or dropping out of school.
Alive & Free has produced over 262 college graduates—70 of whom have also gone on to obtain graduate degrees, and the program has trained 1,177 teachers and staff at 17 schools, benefiting more than 15,000 students. Check out the testimonials from Alive & Free community members Mike’l Gregory and Aurion Wiley Green.
For more than 35 years, many thousands of youth and those who care about them listen in on Sunday evenings to Dr. Marshall’s “Street Soldiers Radio” on the radio in San Francisco and on Facebook. Check out previous episodes and new ones at https://www.facebook.com/StayAliveAndFree/live/
We are honored to know you Dr. Marshall, we are immensely grateful for your life-changing programs, and we are thrilled to be your partner!
Jonathan D. Greenberg
