Former judge, others feted for volunteering
Volunteer Retired Judge Mary Lupo receives a Volunteer Award for Excellence from Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office honored more than 1,700 volunteers at the Palm Beach County Convention Center.
WEST PALM BEACH — A former prison inmate and a former county judge shared the spotlight Wednesday afternoon as the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office recognized more than 1,700 volunteers for their service during 2017.
Anthony Hoskins, honored with a Volunteer Award for Excellence, leads five programs at The Lord’s Place in West Palm Beach but also goes to detention centers to mentor both juveniles and adults who were in custody.
He spoke to them from experience. He was put in custody for the first time at age 9, went to prison at 15 and finally got out at 41, after serving three prison sentences for offenses such as trafficking in drugs and stealing cars.
“For me to get up and speak and talk to people who really need the support — that’s something I’m willing to give back for the rest of my life,” said Hoskins, now 46 and a Boynton Beach resident.
Also honored with the award was retired Circuit Judge Mary Lupo, who has spent her volunteer hours offering “tough love” to people who’ve become addicted to drugs.
“My message is, ‘We care about you and there’s hope,’ ” Lupo said. “The fact that they chose to get into the education program means that they are fed up and looking for another way.”
Volunteers make up a large part of the sheriff’s operations. In 2017, they gave more than 329,000 hours of service — more than 37 years worth of time within a single year — toward the office’s programs.
Hoskins began contributing hours to PBSO’s inmate-services division last April, and he said he works with both men and women, boys and girls. Surrounding himself with strong, productive people gave him hope, and he wants to do the same for those in need. He said he knows of one person who has returned to school and found a job after he worked with them.
“Inmates don’t have direction,” Hoskins said. “They have taken from society for so long that they feel like it’s OK, but it’s not OK, because when you get older, you’re not going to have Social Security, you’re not going to have anything in the books, so who’s going to take care of you? The state isn’t going to.”
Hoskins said he found determination to change while he was serving his last prison sentence in 2013. Judge Charles Burton gave him a chance to give back to the community after attending programs offered to inmates.
“I was told, ‘Anthony you have a long history, you need to stop,’ ” Hoskins said. “When (Burton) gave me that chance in 2013, I never looked back.”
Lupo’s volunteer efforts started while she was still working as a judge in 1991, when she discovered the sheriff ’s office’s Drug Farm program, with 10 male residents housed in a mobile home in Belle Glade.
Lupo said a visit impressed her so much that she showed other judges the opportunity for recovery that it offered people struggling with addiction.
The number of people assigned to the program grew at such a high rate that it was moved to the Belle Glade stockade, which offered cells devoted to drug treatment, Lupo said.
Since 1991, Palm Beach County’s sheriffs have supported drug education and treatment within the jail, which Lupo said is “a big commitment.”
“If you think about it, the sheriff ’s budget comes from who he keeps in jail, not who stays out, yet these sheriffs care more about the com- munity than the size of their budgets,” Lupo said.
While Lupo was still on the bench, she said she made a “wall of fame” where those who graduated from the pro- gram would have a photo of themselves with Lupo placed in front of the flag in her courtroom.
“If they relapsed, the pictures would come down, but I would not destroy them,” said Lupo, now 70 and a
Also honored with the award was retired Circuit Judge Mary Lupo, who has spent her volunteer hours offering “tough love” to people who’ve become addicted to drugs.
suburban Palm Beach Gardens resident.
“Relapsing is part of the process for recovery, and they can always come back to the wall.”
Two people Lupo taught in the program attended the volunteer ceremony to thank her.
One was a woman who stayed in the Drug Farm and said she has been clean for about 20 years. Another was a man who used to regularly come into Lupo’s courtroom. Lupo said she would make him show his scars and burns from his drug use to those in attendance.
“I speak, I inspire, I give hope, and I show them that somebody with a title really cares about them and understands them,” Lupo said. “I also believe that they owe the community. They have something to offer. They have responsibilities.”