GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - A Greenville organization is expanding its services by assisting Upstate children whose lives have been affected by addiction, incarceration, poverty and trauma.
"I love how he talks to the kids. He talks to me, not down to me," 15-year-old Brook Hall said about Bill Gibson.
But before Gibson started counseling kids, he had to help himself.
"I had been wanting to get away from criminality for a while," Gibson said.
Incarcerated for seven years, Gibson woke up everyday and went to the library.
"I had the same dedication to criminality as I had to developing something positive. That was my mindset," he added. "I actually met a lot of people in the federal prison system who had ran non-profits."
So, Gibson decided to start his own. Gibson is the founder and director of The C.A.R.R.S. Project: Community Addiction Recovery & Reentry Services.
"People can come and seek help for detox, treatment, transitional housing," Gibson said about the program. C.A.R.R.S aims to assist people in communities that are disproportionally impacted by addiction, criminality, incarceration and trauma.
When Gibson got out of prison three years ago, he hit the ground running with the program; and while helping adults in the Upstate, he recognized another need.
"Kids of parents that are incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, struggle with addiction- those kids have a higher degree of criminality, incarceration and addiction themselves," Gibson said.
C.A.R.R.S. offers summer and afterschool programs for children and teens, showing them how to become resilient in the face of adversity and teaching them life skills like financial literacy.
"The common denominator of most people who I met in prison was poverty," Gibson said.
Hall has attended the program for the last two summers. This year, she started a t-shirt company.
"We make all of our t-shirts here in the lab. We got the computer, the press, the cutter....I'm seeing like, 'Oh! I'm really benefitting from knowing about financial literacy," Hall said.
Gibson is inspired by his activist parents, whose dad was the master chairman of the NAACP board and mom was a Greenville County Council member for District 25.
He said they would be proud, but they're not the only ones beaming with pride.
"I'm really proud of what Brook has done here and outside in her personal development," Gibson said.
The next afterschool program begins September 1 and will meet twice a week at 1001 Green Ave. in Greenville.
To find out more information about the organization, the summer camp, and how you can support it, visit the C.A.R.R.S.'s Facebook page and Bill Gibson's Facebook page. You can also reach Gibson directly at (864) 655-9712.