A local nonprofit founder who spent three decades in prison for murder has forged an unlikely partnership with a 13-year-old New York City student, uniting across generations and 3,000 miles to address America’s fatherlessness crisis.
Terrance Hunter, founder of Morgan Hill-based Empowering the Fatherless, received an unexpected email three months ago from August Fisher, a teenager from Manhattan’s Upper East Side who had independently created a website to support fatherless youth. The connection has evolved into a mutual collaboration for the benefit of families everywhere.
“When I learned this young man had developed a website, I was just blown away,” Hunter said. “To think that a 13-year-old did something like that. When I was 13, I was just bitter and angry. I was not channeling my energy in any sort of positive direction.”
Fisher’s website, SinePatre.com, offers fatherless teens a peer-led platform to share experiences, access resources and connect with others facing similar challenges. The site includes discussion forums, monthly writing prompts, a reading list and a mechanism for connecting teens with vetted peer listeners to have one-on-one discussions.
“Teens often first open up to other teens, and fatherlessness is difficult to describe without triggering any awkwardness or pity,” Fisher said. “SinePatre offers a simple and very accessible space for teens to share what they’re feeling.”
The young activist taught himself web design to bring the vision into virtual reality, learning priceless skills in the course of pursuing his dream. He developed all of its content himself, drawing on his own experience with fatherlessness after his own father left in the years prior to the pandemic.
“What once was difficult for me and challenging, I learned how to express,” Fisher said. “I kind of took this challenge and felt how good it was to share with other people my scenario and how that made me feel better.”
Hunter’s journey to advocacy took a longer road, leading him to found Empowering the Fatherless after a 30-year sentence at San Quentin State Prison.
Raised by his mother in a Baptist church, Hunter never knew his biological father’s identity. That absence festered into anger that ultimately led to violence.
“In this country you learn very early on that boys are supposed to be tough, so I started denying how I felt about not having a dad and telling myself I didn’t care,” Hunter said. “I established that mentality at the age of 15 years old. I had the attitude of, ‘I’m not taking any crap off anybody. Somebody disrespect me or offend me, they’re going to pay the price.’”
This attitude led to tragedy when, at 25, Hunter killed a friend and was sentenced to prison on the charge of second-degree murder for 17 years to life. He entered the California Department of Corrections in 1985 and served 30 years before his release in December 2014.
His transformation began about a decade into his incarceration, following participation in Alternatives to Violence, a correctional workshop at San Quentin.
“I was able to come to terms with the fact that I was angry and I had an internal violent streak in me as a result of how I felt about never knowing my dad,” Hunter said. “Once I was able to make the connection between my internal anger and my violence and how I felt about being a fatherless kid, I wasn’t angry anymore.”
Hunter began facilitating self-help groups and participating in a modified Scared Straight program at San Quentin, sharing his story with at-risk youth from the Bay Area.
“When I saw the effect I was able to have on these kids, that gave me an incentive that when I was released from prison, I would do whatever I can to make a difference in the lives of youth,” he said.
Building a network
Hunter and Fisher’s coast-to-coast partnership aims to spread the word about SinePatre and its mission beyond its current reach, to build a network of activists and victims of fatherlessness not only nationwide, but eventually global.
Their shared mission addresses what both activists describe as an urgent national crisis. According to Hunter, about 25 million children in America are growing up without fathers, with ripple effects including elevated suicide rates among fatherless teens.
“It’s been proven that it’s due to their sense of feeling alone and isolated,” Hunter said. “August’s website can counter that. If I was a kid growing up now and I knew that there was a website designed by a fatherless kid that supports fatherless kids, then I wouldn’t feel so alone.”
Fisher plans to expand his social media presence, recruit more volunteers and establish additional partnerships with organizations like Hunter’s.
“Social media is the place to be to get these teens onto my site if they see it as a good resource for them,” Fisher said.
While their approaches differ, both advocates emphasize their complementary missions.
“We’re united under one common goal,” Fisher said. “We complement each other because we have different approaches.”
The partnership has proven mutually inspiring. Hunter described receiving Fisher’s email as “priceless,” providing renewed energy for his advocacy work. Fisher expressed gratitude for Hunter’s mentorship and promotional support.
“This is not going to be something that is going to exist for a short period of time,” Hunter said. “I really look forward to watching this young man grow up into the man that he’s going to become.”
More information can be found on the organizations’ websites at sinepatre.com and empoweringthefatherless.org.
Excellent article Terrance! The simplistic decision that causes him to be a danger to his community and on the wrong side of the law also puts him that much closer to prison.