This Thanksgiving, She’s Thankful to Have Her Father Back

When Lakeisha was 2 years old, her father Tony went to prison. He wasn’t released until she was 29. 

Lakeisha and Tony can’t get those 27 years back. The Holidays were especially tough for Lakeisha. “I spent a lot of years sad and angry because I wasn’t able to wake up on Christmas with my dad,” she says. “It was very hard growing up without him.”

But every Thanksgiving since Tony’s release 10 years ago, Lakeisha is thankful to have her father back. 

When Tony completed his sentence, he wanted to make things right—both to his community and to his daughter.

“I knew I couldn’t be ‘daddy dearest.’ She was a grown woman with her own life,” says Tony. “But I wanted to be back in it. I wanted to right the wrongs of my absence.” 

That same drive to give back and right wrongs led Tony to excel in Ready, Willing & Able. Like many trainees, at first he wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of sweeping streets. But as we say: pushing the bucket isn’t about pushing the bucket.

“I was cleaning on 72nd St and Central Park West, and every day more and more people were coming up to me saying, ‘Thank you so much for what you’re doing,’ over and over again,” Tony  recently shared at The Doe Fund’s Gala. 

“I was like, ‘Why are you thanking me? I’m just sweeping streets.’ But I talked to someone who was still incarcerated, and he told me, ‘That’s how you’re giving back! That’s the first step to redemption. You are being recognized for being productive.’ That’s when I realized how important this was for my transformative process in society,” he says. 

“Hearing people say that they appreciated my efforts validated that I could give back to the community,” says Tony. “It built up my confidence and led me to do more. I started associating myself with youth organizations, my church, and neighborhood groups.”

Being part of Ready, Willing & Able also allowed him to reconnect with his daughter, thanks to The Doe Fund’s family reunification program.

“He used to send me pictures of him in the blue uniform—he was so excited,” says Lakeisha. “The most important thing to him was that he had a job and that he’s able to provide for his family.”

Now, Tony is a Case Manager at The Doe Fund’s Peter Jay Sharp Center for Opportunity, paying it forward by providing crucial support services to the next generation of future Ready, Willing & Able graduates. The one thing he’s more proud of is being there for his daughter and three grandchildren.

“To me, he is my superhero,” she says. “That is the greatest man that I know on this earth. He’s always been that to me, despite being gone all those years. He was always, always here for me, and now it’s intensified more because he’s free.”