2021 Jefferson Awards: Rusty Boruff
From Marquette Street in Davenport, Iowa, there s an old church in an old neighborhood, but the people here - and the area - are doing a One Eighty. This is one of the hardest communities when it comes to poverty and crime from south Chicago to east St. Louis. This is it, explains Rusty Boruff.
At the center of this community is Rusty, who is living proof of what doing a One Eighty means. I couldn t shake the addiction that I had in my life and ended up homeless and in jail, he recalls. But right before I m getting ready to be sentenced, someone barged in the courtroom and they said It s a boy and that s how I found out I was having a son and I remember the emotions of that moment – one of the most exciting moments of your life and you want to hug someone or celebrate and literally the only thing I could think of – shackled there, waiting, looking at 14 years – was who s going to teach my son to play catch? I m going to miss his