Readers Care Fund: Agency helps teen get back in school

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a quarter- century, Seattle Post-Intelligencer readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund drive, generating more than $5 million for local charities. Today we look at one of the charities benefiting this year: Southwest Youth and Family Services.

Over the past four years, school hardly mattered to Greg Triggs.

But his family did.


		Jim Bryant / P-I
	Greg Triggs, 17, shows off his tattoo, which honors the memories of his brother and a cousin. Triggs' friend Joyce Kelley is in background.

When they hurt, so did he, so much so that Triggs dropped out as a freshman when his ailing father received a liver transplant.

The West Seattle teen didn't resume his high school education until this fall, the day after attending a close cousin's funeral in Pennsylvania.

In between, Triggs' only brother died from a drug overdose in Nevada and another cousin was in a coma after a car accident in Oregon.

"I stopped caring about school," said Triggs, 17. "What's the point if everybody's dying young, you know?"

With the help of Southwest Youth and Family Services, Triggs is taking steps to make something of his life.

He enrolled this fall in the non-profit agency's education program, designed to help struggling students catch up on credits and return to their regular high schools.

"He was completely disconnected from school. We helped him reconnect," said Bryan Hayes, coordinator of the agency's education center.

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Triggs has been a straight-A student so far. His case shows "the amount of adversity a young person can (face) and still have the stamina and resilience to go through it," Hayes said.

"He's a pleasure to have in the classroom. We are definitely expecting great things from Greg."

Southwest Youth and Family Services also offers individual and family counseling, an education program for teen parents and classes in parenting and English as a second language.

Now in its 25th year, the agency serves about 1,500 people annually in West Seattle, White Center and South Park.

In the education center, where there are 16 students to one teacher, "we treat young people like young adults," Hayes said. "We have a small class size, give students free rein in terms of getting out of their seat or fixing a snack -- all these things that suggest freedom."

Some students in the program have been out of school since eighth grade. The students take placement tests to determine their level.

"I'm a strong believer that not everyone learns through traditional methods," said instructor Lisa Gascon, who makes adjustments for students who are more visual learners, for example.

Triggs started at Sealth High as a freshman but fell behind when his father, Frank Triggs, became seriously ill with a liver disease and underwent transplant surgery.

From Sealth, the younger Triggs went to South Seattle Community College and then to Renton Technical College, intending to earn his General Educational Development (GED) certificate.

It never happened. Triggs admits he didn't take school seriously and went through "a lot of wasted time and effort."

Last year, his 23-year-old brother, Lucas Regnier, was found dead from a drug overdose in Las Vegas. Triggs believes his brother was murdered, saying Regnier was turning his life around and that evidence suggests that the fatal dose might not have been self-injected. No one has been charged in the death.

The next family setback occurred when his 19-year-old cousin lost control of a car near Corvallis, Ore., and rolled the vehicle three times. He was in a coma for about a month and emerged with diminished brain function, Triggs said.

In August, another cousin was killed in a car-bus accident in Bethlehem, Pa. Triggs was excused from the first day of class at Southwest Youth and Family Services to attend the funeral. The cousin was just one day older than Triggs.

"It's amazing for someone so young to have gone through that," Gascon said.

With his mom, Kelly, recently returning to work, Triggs has been going home during his lunch time to check on his dad.

Gascon and Hayes call Triggs a class leader, saying he is bright, articulate and charismatic, unafraid to offer his opinions in discussions.

Recent classroom topics have included state-sanctioned gambling, martial arts, politically incorrect nicknames of sports teams, and "The Giver," a novel by Lois Lowry about a utopian community and the cost of living without choices.

Asked why he's doing so well in school now when he failed before, Triggs provided a ready answer: He's finally giving his education his full attention.

"I thought, I'm not going until I'm ready to go school and do nothing but go to school," he said.

Triggs also says the memory of his brother spurs him on.

"He was just trying to get his life straight," Triggs said. "I thought, why wait?"

P-I reporter John Iwasaki can be reached at 206-448-8096 or johniwasaki@seattlepi.com

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