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Gala Honoree: Johanna Flores
Oct.10.2013
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Johanna Flores bounced back in a big way.
Years ago, as a 19-year-old single mother in Tijuana, Ms. Flores was desperate to find a job to support her son. She met a man who offered her money to smuggle a suitcase full of diamonds from Mexico to New York. With hesitation, she accepted.
But it turned out that suitcase carried five kilograms of cocaine. Ms. Flores made this discovery at the JFK Airport, along with a swarm of police officers. She’d spend the next four years in prison.
More than a decade has passed since her arrest. Today, Ms. Flores is a full time employee of Hour Children, a college student, a housing advocate, a mother and a role model to formerly incarcerated women everywhere.
“At first all I did was cry. I wanted to die,” says Ms. Flores about her incarceration. “Then, one day I stopped crying and realized I had to face reality.”
She learned English, took courses and worked at the prison nursery. But she still had no prospects after release: no friends, no money and no home. So when Hour Children, a nonprofit that provides housing and services to incarcerated women, threw out a lifeline, she grabbed it.