Danielle's Story

“I love hearing stories from different people in the group about how they’ve been able to go in and build relationships with the students. And how it has made them more aware of the carceral system and made them want to be more of an active advocate for social justice and educational equity and for helping people who are re-entering society from incarceration.”

Danielle Andrews is a recent graduate of Howard University where she served as a Petey Greene Program volunteer for four semesters, beginning her junior year. She served on the Executive Board of the on-campus organization in two capacities: as Secretary her junior year and as President during her senior year.

As President, Danielle loved “seeing people become more passionate about social justice.”

Danielle has personally found herself more committed to pursuing a career in social and educational justice after graduation. “Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about post-grad when I started… but through tutoring with the Petey Greene Program…, I learned about the educational disparities and the disciplinary disparities which I feel contribute to Black and Brown people going to prison…I do feel that education plays a large role in people becoming incarcerated and people’s opportunities post incarceration.”

“I want to help create policies that promote more equity in the system… There’s a big disparity in who’s being incarcerated and it’s my goal to help write policies that will make that more equitable and that also will help target education.”

Seeing these disparities first hand helped to spark Danielle’s drive for justice: “At Howard, you are seeing Black people who are doing so many amazing things - and it's like, ‘yeah we're doing this, but we need to make sure we are helping the people who can't come do this right now.’”

In the fall, Danielle will begin pursuing her Master’s Degree in Social Work. She plans to specialize in policy practice.