OCALA, FL (352today.com) – It was a fortuitous opportunity that led Haley Hunt to become the founder of an organization that has made an impact on youth in need of guidance.

In 2018, Hunt founded The VERB Kind, Victory Everyday Restoring Belief, mentoring youth who have been incarcerated in the juvenile detention system for a variety of reasons.

“People always ask do you have any ties to incarceration. Were your parents incarcerated? Were you incarcerated? And to be fully transparent, I was not incarcerated,” said Hunt. “I had no ties to it at all, I feel like it was a passion or desire that God burst inside of me or dropped inside my soul, in one day, in one night.”

A life-altering experience

A transformative moment took place in Hunt’s life after one of the greatest disappointments she’d ever experienced, creating a propitious opportunity that she never could’ve envisioned.

“In 2018, I had just come off of one of the biggest opportunities of my life,” said Hunt. “For my entire life, I had been a singer-songwriter, and I’ve always been in entertainment. I had just come back from L.A., signing a huge production deal for a sports TV show. I was finally going to make it at 34, and I was excited about that. My dreams came crashing down one day when the production company called and cancelled my production deal out of the blue, and it was so weird what I felt at that moment. It was so devastating and it was so peaceful at the same time. It was almost like the bad guy broke up with you right before you married them. It was like something I knew God was saving me for something or from something.”

A couple of months after the devastation of Hunt’s dreams, she received an invitation to go to a juvenile detention center in Orlando. The night that she walked into the facility, there were 22 girls staring at her.

“The major of the jail, the warden, was like, ‘hey girls, this is Miss Haley, and she’s here to hang out with you and she’s going to share tonight,'” said Hunt. “And all the girls were looking at me, and one of the girls was like, ‘what do you do.’ At that time in my life, I was just kind of lost. I had been married and went through a divorce, I didn’t have any kids, my music career failed, I didn’t have any identity, I didn’t know what to say. I just said to her, ‘I’m a singer-songwriter.’ And she goes, ‘If you’re a singer-songwriter, then sing for us.’ That was the test of tests. They were going to boo me off the stage if I didn’t sing well. Thank God I can sing. I sang a song for them.”

As the evening progressed, Hunt found herself connecting with the girls and young women, listening to their stories, leaving an indelible impression, and the gravitas of their narratives would forever alter her life.

“What was even cooler is that I got to pull out a bag of surprises and it was nail polish and nail files, and I remember painting a little girl’s nails, this pastel purple color and sitting there asking her about her life and stuff,” said Hunt. “And that night she told me, she would rather be in jail than be at her house, that she loved jail and loved being in the detention center because the staff loves her and she’s safer there and gets food there. It just made me sick. She would rather be in this nasty place. Don’t get me wrong, the detention center was clean, but for an average person, it’s not where you want to spend your time. You don’t just want to go hang out at jail. But she loved it, and another little girl was telling me that she gets in trouble on the weekends so that she can go to jail. She’ll tell the judge right to her face, ‘I’ll be back.’ because of the things that are happening to them, the trafficking situation, all the abuse, all the things that we don’t think about as a human or as a citizen going on their merry way.”

It’s just not juvenile girls, however; it’s also boys who have found themselves going down the wrong path, accepting responsibility for things they haven’t done, and not understanding the weight of making the wrong decision and how it may impact the rest of their lives.

“A lot of these boys that are in jail, some of them, they need their butts kicked. They’ve never been shown the right way,” said Hunt. “They don’t even know how to shake a hand properly. No man has ever shown them how to be kind or respectful and do good for themselves or others. It’s always a hustle mentality. Some of the boys haven’t even gotten a shot. Some of those boys are taking charges for uncles because they’re adults. Kids are the man of the house at 15, thinking that the only way to provide for their siblings, to help their mom because they have no father in the house, is to rob a drug dealer.”

What Hunt found by interacting with these the kids at the detention center, was that these were some of the best kids you would ever want to meet.

“You’re literally looking at them, asking how did they even get here? That night in 2018, I started it in Orange County,” said Hunt. “Long story short, I started going every single Monday night. I would bring my Bible study, my friends, pro athletes, I would literally bring everyone.”

Purpose and passion 

Hunt’s newfound passion led to a series of propitious opportunities, as people began taking notice of the noble work she was doing to help young people find their purpose in life, helping them believe in themselves, so when they assimilated back into the community, they would contribute to society.

“In the beginning of 2020, the State of Florida called me, and said whatever you’re doing in Orlando, we need to do this in every county in Florida. We love what you’re doing,” said Hunt. “At that time, I began asking about bringing in a waterslide on Memorial Day and having birthday parties and stuff. I got a lot of pushback from people within the community. Why would you throw a birthday party for kids? Half of these kids have never even had a birthday party. Half of them have never slid down a waterslide or had fun with an adult. We were teaching kids how to tie ties, shake hands. You wouldn’t believe the insecurity that these kids have, just based on how they interact with adults. We love to be like they’re so rude, they don’t know how to act and do certain things. No one has ever shown them how to be confident enough in themselves to even look at you in the eye.”

The organization grew rapidly and in 2021, Hunt moved to South Florida to help a friend of hers, who is a renowned pro athlete, build his brand. She had the opportunity to be around a number of prominent people, she said.

“I was inviting everyone to come with me. At the time it was the Broward Juvenile Detention Center. One time, we had 18 rookies from the Miami Dolphins show up, and ESPN did an article about it, and that’s kind of how people started hearing about it. My friends in Jacksonville, my friends in Ocala, my friends in Tampa, they were like ‘how can we do this here?'” said Hunt.

In her spare time on the weekends, she would drive to those cities and show people how to set up the program.

“We weren’t even a 501 (c)(3) or anything like that,” said Hunt. “It just took off, and today we’re in 19 facilities in three different states and speaking of your city, Ocala, we’re in a really incredible facility with about 50 boys, it’s called Silver Springs Youth Academy, and right across the street is another youth academy with about 70 boys called Ocala Youth Academy. We’re not even in the Ocala one because we don’t have enough mentors.”

Guidance and support 

It’s about making a difference, reducing the recidivism rate, and helping youth find the necessary resources, so they’ll start being productive members of society.

“And then, for Alachua, we’re in an academy, when I say an academy, it’s a residential program, a 21-day turnaround,” said Hunt. “Many of the kids are only in there for 21 days. They’re in and out, everybody’s moving, everybody’s shaking, everybody’s got anxiety, staff is uptight, but with these residential programs. These kids, it’s either their crime or the points that they had or just their past, the judge doesn’t feel like they need to go home yet, so the judge sentences them to a youth academy, where they end up going for six months, 15 months, 12 months, nine months, whatever, based on their behavior, and we have two of those in Ocala.”

The VERB Kind has made a huge difference in building confidence, self-esteem and providing direction. About 50 percent of the kids are in foster care, said Hunt. A lot of the kids will reach out wanting help, and about 70 percent of them want to change.

“And then there’s an all-girls facility in Alachua, with 30 girls, and when I say that these girls have been through hell and back,” said Hunt. “Obviously, some of the girls have done some really tough things, done things that we wouldn’t approve of, and some of the girls are just runaways. They don’t have support. They don’t have family. We go in there, and we don’t look at them as criminals. We don’t look at their past, we just love them passionately, and you would not believe the hope they have in their heart. The way that their attitude changes, the way they end up believing in themselves when they get out. It’s almost like it’s an automatic shift in their decision making.”

The one thing that Hunt wanted to impress upon the community was the way TVK makes an impact on the community by inviting everyday citizens to come and mentor with them.

“Ocala is one of our favorite places to tell stories about these mentors,” said Hunt. “A lot of our mentors are young, but our Ocala team has a lot of grandparents, a lot of older people over the age of 60, you would think as an older person, reading this or hearing about this, you would think, ‘I’m just too old, I don’t have anything to give, these kids are young.’ But that is the opposite. They miss their grandparents. They want to be around older people.”

The VERB Kind’s purpose is to ignite hope and healing, said Hunt. There are more than 350 volunteers at the 19 facilities The VERB Kind serves in Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.

“Is it convenient to serve people, no. Is it comfortable all the time, no,” said Hunt. “But I promise you that it is one of the most rewarding, life-impacting opportunities, you will ever have. People who are in the community of Ocala and want to do something special with their lives, we have had so many people, even in retirement, we’ve had people say I was so lost and I found this opportunity and it has made the most incredible impact on my life. I’m a different person now, and that’s one thing I’d like to say that’s really important to us at The VERB Kind.”