Change is always possible!

Ginny Burton’s childhood was a complete mess. She lived her early years with violence and illegal activities. Her parents were both drug addicts, particularly her mentally-ill mother who first introduced her to marijuana at the age of 6.

She started using meth at 12 years old and she was already smoking crack at 14. She was raped by a man who bought drugs from her mother when she was 16. Ginny attempted to take her own life at 17 and at 23 years old, she was already a full-blown heroin addict.

Together with a man named Jack, they used to rob Mexican drug dealers at gunpoint. Her life had no other directions aside from down and just when she thought life couldn’t go any lower for her, she was terribly mistaken.

Ginny had shot somebody, stole cars, and was still into drugs – just more addicted!

She even had her children taken away from her, she indeed lived a chaotic life with no traces of redeeming it one day.

“I have 17 felony convictions. I am the person you used to clutch your bag when I walked by you. I am the person that would randomly attack somebody in public. I was not a savory person. Everybody was a victim, and everybody was prey,” Ginny said while looking back at her dark past.

She had been in and out of the state prison, three times to be exact. Her last arrest was on December 5, 2012, at that time she realized, she’s had enough.

“I knew I was OK,” she said while trying to recall that life-changing moment. “I knew when he put the handcuffs on me and put me in his car, I knew my life was going to change and it was then, in that moment, that I made the decision to turn it around no matter what it took.”

It was the end and the beginning.

While serving his sentence in prison, Ginny pleaded to be placed under the Drug Diversion Court program. There, she received treatment at the Regional Justice Center. She eventually got clean and gladly, stayed clean.

Since then, there was no way but up for the former drug addict. For seven years, Ginny did social service work for the Post Prison Education Program at the Lazarus Day Center. She also enrolled at South Seattle College where she admitted to having felt being an outcast because of her age.

However, that feeling also awakened her and fueled her to push herself harder in getting her way back up.

“It made me recognize how much time I had wasted in my life. And I also recognized that I was actually good at learning. something I enjoyed,” she said.

Ginny also got accepted at the University of Washington.

In 2019, she studied political science at the said university after being awarded a Martin Honor Scholarship. She soon realized how smart she truly was when she made it to the all-academic team at the university and became the 2020 Truman Scholar for Washington state.

She also managed to rebuild her relationship with her husband, Chris Burton. He too was jailed and released, became clean, and stayed clean as well. The now-changed woman still wants to achieve more by eyeing to get her master’s degree.

Ginny plans to use both her experience and intelligence to reach out to different prisons across the country. She wants to dedicate herself to prison reform and to make incarceration, not just a punishment but also a life fixer.

Watch the video below to know more about Ginny’s story of redemption.

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Source: Positive Outlooks, Facebook – V Ginny Burton, YouTube – KOMO News