Image above: Tito Porter receives the Gold Kite Award at Youth Villages Employee Conference

Memphis Allies’ Tito Porter and Willie ‘Fresh’ Rodgers receive Gold Kite Awards

It takes a special person to work on the front lines for Memphis Allies. By engaging with people at the highest risk for gun violence, staff members accept several realities:

• This is not 9-to-5 work. When a participant needs you — often during a time of crisis — it is imperative staff respond.
• This work becomes a part of you; there are many stories of success, but also stories of disappointment and loss that can be difficult to carry.
• This work is dangerous, sometimes even when you do not expect it to be.

As Memphis Allies Managing Director of Operations Carl Davis said: “We know all our Memphis Allies folks come with their own story, their own passion for this work.”

All of which makes Memphis Allies’ Willie “Fresh” Rodgers and Tito Porter — 2025 Youth Villages Gold Kite Award winners — that much more exceptional. The Gold Kite Award is Youth Villages’ highest honor for employees. Rodgers and Porter are more than deserving. Although to hear them tell it, they are just doing their jobs.

“I’m just doing the normal,” said Porter, an outreach supervisor.

“It’s heart work,” said Rodgers, a regional supervisor at Hickory Hill. Rodgers lived out that sentiment on April 9 when a Memphis Allies participant was killed and several other people were injured in a drive-by shooting at the Hickory Hill office. Rodgers was there that day, and a bullet struck his lower right leg. He left by ambulance but returned hours later and was part of a staff debriefing at the site.

Rodgers said he was “never naive” to the dangers of this work, but he also did not anticipate an incident such as this, or getting shot. Out of the tragedy, there has been a deeper connection among those working for Memphis Allies.

“People from other offices came and showed us love,” he said. “It strengthened our bond in that office, especially the people there in that time.”

The incident reinforced the importance and urgency of gun violence intervention work. Since Memphis Allies launched in FY 2022, more than 1,200 SWITCH and SWITCH Youth participants have been served. And the work is making an impact: 91% of those participants have not received a new gun charge while in programming.

“I can see a shift in their minds,” he said. “Not perfection, but you see slight changes. You learn when they need you, you need to put your life on hold.”

“Tito has the gift of gab,” Davis added. “You let him talk; he can sell water to a well. He wouldn’t accept a promotion if he couldn’t do the frontline work. He’s not an-inside-the-four-walls type of guy.”

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