Kevin Upshur walked away from a safe, middle class life to spend all his time assisting kids in a Philadelphia neighborhood that's dealing with gun violence, poverty, unemployment, low literacy, and a high school graduation rate that’s half the national average.

His mom ran a bar in the neighborhood until it got too dangerous and she decided to close it. She left the abandoned place to Upshur when she died, asking him to use it to do something good for the neighborhood’s kids. It took a huge amount of time and resources to upgrade the building, equip it, and open it as the Strawberry Mansion Learning Center. Upshur did it all and is now there every day, working with kids. Then he works a night shift at a youth detention center, earning money for the Center’s costs, and counseling the kids who haven’t had the kind of support his Center provides.

That support includes mentors, a safe place to do homework, books, unlimited computer access, healthy meals and tutoring, plus classes on nutrition, culinary arts, and African-American history. It also, Upshur will tell you, gives the kids hope, and “a roadmap to where you want to go.”

His own hope is that the children he sees at Strawberry Mansion don’t end up in the detention center where he spends his nights.

It’s not an easy life. People contribute computers and food; friends and neighbors volunteer to manage activities. Still, the costs mount and Upshur is constantly plugging holes in the operating budget. It’s worth it.

“We see [the young people] grow and mature in a way where they become more conscious about who they are and what they need to do,” says Upshur. And that’s one of the most rewarding things that I get.” “Sometimes when I’m getting ready to leave here, I cut the lights out and I sit on the sofa for a minute, and I say, ‘Wow, today was a good day—your mom would be proud of you today. You did good.'"