Several students from the No More Victims, Inc. advocacy program, founded and headed by Marilyn Gambrell, made the big walk last Thursday despite the many odds against them doing so. These are children from Northeast Houston's M.B. Smiley High School who have one or more parent in prison, some of them doing life sentences. By the mere act of graduating these young people have been able to achieve success despite some very tough odds, something that is statistically not expected of them.

Smiley High is closing it's doors this year, making this the final graduating class from this school, so, to make this event very special, music publicist Nancy Byron worked with Gambrell to get nationally known rappers such as Chamillionaire, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Trae tha Truth and Michael '5000' Watts, some of whom themselves attended Smiley,to participate and give the graduating kids some much deserved congratulations and encouragement to keep up the great work. The event was held at a Houston Pappadeaux's restaurant where the young graduates were dropped off in donated stretch limos.

Congratulations guys and all the best in the future!

No More Victim's, Inc. is an advocacy program for infants and children of incarcerated parents; offering counseling, mentoring, and educational assistance. To many of the children it is the only family they know. No More Victims, Inc. is a program unique to the city of Houston and currently has over 700 members, both past and present. The amazing work Marilyn has done with the children enrolled in her program (only 3% of the children who have gone through her program have ended up in prison themselves) has garnered not only national media attention (CNN, US News and World Report, People), but a motion picture, Fighting the Odds; The
Marilyn Gambrell Story, was released by the Lifetime Television Network in 2005, starring Jami Gertz as Marilyn Gambrell, that continues to air on a monthly basis to this day. The film won an Emmy Nomination as an outstanding feature film.