"When I was in seventh grade I used to sell drugs and stuff," Phillip admits.

Dealing drugs at 12, he says, "was just to get money."

A tragic story, but one we hear all too often.  Only this story has a different ending than most.  Phillip Godoy got help.

He went to Project YES, where "They helped me think of a better way to spend my time.  My personality changed.  I could talk to people who knew how I grew up and could relate to me."

He struck with it and made it through the program.

Phillip also became a leader within Project YES.  He joined the Youth Council, in which he is still active.  He also joined "Hew Horizons" prevention education program to help other kids who are dealing with the same pressures he has experienced.

Now 16, Phillip looks toward the future.  He will be a member of the Pueblo High School's Class of 2001.  He knows he's going to make it.  He still gets some peer pressure, but he lives by the philosophy, "I got to learn to say no ... I have learned to say no, actually."

It's a lesson he thanks Project YES for teaching him.

Adapted from Tucson Lifestyle
December 1998
Portrait Photos by David Fox