Shortly before Sy Newson Green’s sophomore year in high school, a family health crisis ate up the money that would have paid his tuition at the private Catholic school he’d been attending for a year.
His father needed a heart transplant, his mother lost vision when a softball hit her eye — and both parents lost their jobs. Sy was thriving and happy at the all-boys Palma School, in Salinas, Calif., and the school could provide some scholarship help, but not enough to cover the $12,900 annual tuition.
That’s when an unlikely group of people stepped up with the remainder of the tuition: inmates at the nearby Correctional Training Facility, also known as Soledad State Prison.
