By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

When you're in the thick of trouble, it's hard to remember that it won't last forever. It's difficult to see the conflict as temporary, and to believe that time heals all wounds, but it does, particularly when that time is filled with positive influences.

Jane Castro Tampon's life story is a perfect allegory for that.

This week, the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation held a luncheon to present grants to 17 Hawai'i nonprofit agencies. Each agency was asked to introduce one of their clients to give a first-person account of what the nonprofit did for them.

Jane spoke as a client of Adult Friends for Youth.

She described her troubled childhood and the feeling of not being wanted anywhere. Her parents divorced when she was young, and both started new families with new spouses.

Jane and her brother lived with their grandparents for a time before the grandparents decided they couldn't handle the kids anymore. The two were bounced around to the houses of different relatives. At one point, they lived upstairs with their grandparents and their father lived downstairs with his new family. She remembers that her father would only come upstairs to scold them.

Because Jane and her brother were so close in age, just 11 months apart, they clung to each other. "We told each other that we'd be our own family, that we would always be there for the other and always stick together."

So when her brother became a teenager and joined a gang, she became an ancillary member as well.

The gang members called themselves "Baby Hawaiian Brothers." The gang became a surrogate family for the two. But with the association came violence, criminal behavior and the constant threat of a rival gang.

Jane remembers her brother's mortal enemy, a rival gang member named Mo. Jane lived in fear that Mo would take her brother's life.

The way out of that lifestyle started with Adult Friends for Youth. At first, Jane and her compatriots participated in the program just because there were snacks and "we were always hungry."

Later, the program became a lifeline.

When Jane got pregnant at 16, Adult Friends for Youth staff would take her to doctor's appointments. If not for the agency, she would have been alone in the hospital when she gave birth to her son. The agency helped her get her GED.

Years later, Jane went to work for the agency as an assistant. Now, she runs the youth transition conferences. And the kicker to all of this is that the dreaded Mo is now a co-worker. More than that, he's her dear friend.

"Fifteen years ago, we would never be in the same room together," Jane says. Now, she and Mo and her brother can laugh at how things used to be and marvel at how they are.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.