Long before there was a nonprofit, it was simply years of Corrin showing up and sitting in circle with youth at the Juvenile Hall, every week, building relationships rooted in consistency, compassion, and care. Through Verity’s trauma-informed programming, she led healthy-relationship and life-skills groups, talk circles, and countless one-on-one conversations where young people slowly — sometimes painfully — began to trust her. While listening to their stories and the weight they carried, she learned that healing inside a locked facility requires patience, humility, and an unwavering belief in who these young people can become.

These youth were talented, resilient, and hungry for opportunity. She grew to understand the weight of long sentences, the impact of childhood trauma, the gaps in support, and the quiet anxieties youth carried about a future no one had prepared them for. These relationships — built slowly, consistently, and with deep care — planted the first seeds of Groundwork for Youth.

And then something unexpected happened. In the middle of group work, youth began voicing a simple but profound fear of not cooking a single thing for themselves in years. How would they be able to live independently, now? Corrin and Chef Jorge Flores heard them clearly and together, they created the very first pilot culinary class at Los Guilicos in 2024 — something the facility had never allowed before. It started with almost nothing: two electric burners, borrowed tables, a couple of pans, and a belief that if given responsibility, youth would rise to meet it.

Jorge, who understood these young men in ways few could — because he had walked a similar road — wasn’t afraid to get creative or get his hands dirty. And through a mix of discipline, humor, and heart, what began as a tiny pilot — quickly became something bigger. The youth showed up. They committed. They thrived.

It became clear that the culinary program was more than cooking: it was dignity, it was mentorship, it was preparation for real life.

Groundwork for Youth emerged as a response to this truth: that transformation doesn’t happen at release — it has to begin inside and it must continue in the community with the same trusted adults who stood beside them while they were locked up. When given support, consistency, and someone who believes in them, youth rise — every single time.