Children growing up in crime-riddled neighborhoods — where gangs and drugs are much more common than positive role models – know the odds are stacked against them from the start.

The 'I Have A Dream' Foundation is helping kids from at-risk neighborhoods overcome those seemingly unbeatable odds to succeed in life.

Some would say UNLV freshman Jasmin Melton is living proof that children from high-crime low-income neighborhoods don't have to become a product of their bad environment. “Everyone thought that was what we were going to do,” she said.

But not Jasmin's parents or the 'I Have A Dream' Foundation. The Las Vegas chapter of the national non-profit group — founded in 1993 – adopted Jasmin right out of her Walter Bracken kindergarten classroom — along with 54 of her schoolmates.

The foundation made a commitment right then to sponsor and empower them to seek a college education.

“The 'I Have a Dream' Foundation was my life. I went to school, home and the Dreamer Station every day — that was my life,” said Jasmin.

And every day after school — within the four walls of the portable buildings erected in the parking lot of the Texas Station Casino — Jasmin and her fellow Dreamers were loved, tutored, counseled, mentored and more.

“They taught me etiquette, manners and how to hold a general educated conversation. I learned how to hold myself up in complete contrast to how society thought I was going to turn out,” she said.

Jasmin graduated with honors from Las Vegas High last year and is now studying business and accounting at UNLV. “Without them, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I love them like I love my real biological family,” she said, crying.

Jasmin's career goal is to own her own firm one day — but that's not all. “I want to start a new chapter of 'I Have a Dream' and I'm going to find my own neighborhood to adopt and hopefully I'll make the exact same difference in their lives that they made in mine.”

Thanks to the 'I Have A Dream' Foundation and its many corporate and community sponsors, Jasmin's class of Dreamers eventually grew to a total of 75.

All but a few are in various stages of high school and college — with the first group set to graduate with college degrees next year.

Email your comments to Reporter Alyson McCarthy.

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