Plymouth’s Jessica Dutille (with son Caleb) is a volunteer at the Pemi Youth Center, helping at-risk teens find a reason to believe in themselves. (Photo: David Lazar)
Jessica Dutille was a young business student at Plymouth State University committed more to community service than climbing the corporate ladder when she walked across Main Street one afternoon and discovered her calling. “When I was going for my MBA,” Dutille says, “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for corporate America,’ but that the skills I was acquiring were really good and could certainly apply to the non-profit world. As soon as I walked in (to the Pemi Youth Center), I could definitely tell this was someplace special.”
In Plymouth’s Pemi Youth Center, along the Pemigewasset River, Dutille found a place in need of business sense and healthy doses of energy and empathy. Nearly five years later, Dutille, 29, has brought all in steady supply, donating much of her time to helping kids, often down on their luck, find a reason to believe in themselves. Founded in 1999, when a Plymouth shop owner saw dozens of teens on the town common after school with no safe place to go, the Pemi Youth Center each year offers more than 200 kids – 11-17, and labeled ‘at-risk’ – a place to study, play sports, be artistic, apply for college, and acquire everyday skills from coping to cooking.
“A lot of people look at NH and say, ‘Oh, they’re so well off,’ but there are a lot of kids up here in poverty, especially in this economy,” she says. “Many can’t afford to participate in sports or buy equipment or take music lessons. Here, they have opportunities they wouldn’t find elsewhere…at no cost to them. If there’s one thing I want these kids to walk away with, it’s to know they have the ability to accomplish anything, and then to give back in their own way.”
Dutille continues to give back in other ways, launching the Faith, Hope and Love Foundation four years ago with Laconia schoolteacher Laura Brusseau to helps kids with basic necessities, from scholarships and shelter to food, educational and medical needs. It is a lot to take on, Dutille admits, especially as a full-time mom of two young boys on a part-time paycheck. But, she’d have it no other way.
“I’ve had kids ask me before, ‘Why do you do this? Why do you want to hang out with us?” she says. “And I say to them, ‘Because you’re the kids who will be seeing my own kids through and offering advice when they get to your age.’ It’s just a privilege to be a part of their lives and a person they can rely on; that when they get off the bus, we’ll be here.”
For more information, visit www.pyc.holdernet.org.
