Ava's Story

The Petey Greene Program is thrilled to be an official charity partner of the TCS New York City Marathon and we are thrilled to introduce you to one of our amazing runners! Ava Delargy has been volunteering with the Petey Greene Program for two years through our program at Brooklyn Law School as she pursues her J.D. 

When asked what differentiates The Petey Greene Program from other criminal justice and educational reform programs, Ava fondly talked about PGP’s focus on fostering community and the opportunity to create real connections between students and tutors.

“I think there’s a huge emphasis on building relationships with the people that you work with so that once the placement is over, the impact you’ve made continues. The humanity element is really important in making the tutoring successful and making them feel encouraged to continue on their academic journey.”

Despite previous volunteer opportunities and her background in law, the Petey Greene Program has been essential in Ava’s own journey in learning about injustices in our criminal legal system and the rehabilitative powers of education. 

“You can read as much as you want. There’s a ton of research and literature on how you can contribute to prison reform. But I don’t think that you can fully understand it or contribute in a super meaningful capacity until you’re actually face-to-face with people who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated.”

Ava began running during the pandemic, inspired by her mother’s own active lifestyle in her youth, as well as the influx of online running content during quarantineAlthough she has her own running community in New York to motivate her, she is finding  that running on behalf of an organization is helping her stay on track: “I’m not just running for myself. I’m running for and with other people.”

Wondering why you should support Ava’s marathon fund? She emphasizes that “ultimately, money is always going to change things for people. Funding allows us to go into these facilities and help people. Funding builds curriculums.”  

The Petey Greene Program relies on the help of community members and people like you to maintain the reach of our programs and the high quality of our resources. You can sponsor Ava’s marathon run here. We are so grateful for your commitment, Ava!