Student with dark past now serves as mentor
Ben Skillings and the Phoenix Network provide support for troubled youth and adults
Paul Koenig
Issue date: 2/1/10 Section: News
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Skillings, 28, is a communications major and the President of the Phoenix Network at USM, an organization consisting of a network of mentors and advocates who support those currently or formerly in foster care and anyone homeless, incarcerated, or recently resettled.
The Phoenix Network helped Skillings in his decision to further his education at USM in 2007.
"From about 13 to 22 I was on probation for various minor offenses-what some would call civil annoyances, all having to do with drugs and alcohol," he said. "I was on probation and in and out of jail for quite some time. After the age of 22 I began to get straight," he added. But it wasn't until one more stretch in jail at age 23 that he finally began to turn his life around. "I made it through probation for the first time ever after that," he said.
Skillings had seen his friend and Phoenix mentor Omar Abdul-Malik's life change for the better.
Abdul-Malik had spent time in jail before meeting Bill Dickinson, who founded the Smith Society in Santa Cruz, California. He moved to Maine and teamed up with Abdul-Malik to create the Phoenix Society in the same vein as the Smith Society.
Abdul-Malik brought Skillings to the Multicultural Center at USM in 2006 to discuss Skillings' future. "I noticed how happy the kids around me were. The kids that were graduating were moving out of state, off doing bigger and better things and I was making 12 bucks an hour working at Spring Harbor and Shalom House," said Skillings.
After a year of convincing, he enrolled at USM. He knew he wanted to change his life but didn't always know how to do it. He tried joining the Army around the age of 18, but his arrest record kept him out. Skillings said while he made the decision to change a long time before he did, "it's just there are those fleeting moments where I forgot the importance of it and found myself in trouble again. I think the question is 'am I going to continue to make that decision on a day-to-day basis?' And so far today, it's yes."
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