(K-LOVE Closer Look) – Some step forward when tragedy strikes. For Andre Harris, founder and president of Dads Against Crime, that moment came when Kansas City 4-year-old Legend Taliferro was murdered in his father's home in June 2020. Harris noted the outpouring of support the boy’s mother received from media and the community, but “nobody was asking Ralph (the boy's father) how he was doing." That observation sparked him to support fathers devastated by gun violence.
Harris knows the streets intimately. "I sold drugs from the time that I was 14 all the way to the time that I was 25,” he shares. The lifestyle brought consequences. "I lost a lot of friends, lost a lot of family members, gang violence, murder. That's what comes along with that life.” But in 2011, something changed. "I woke up and I didn't want to sell drugs no more... I turned myself in."
The transformation was not immediate. Finding legitimate work proved nearly impossible. "Jobs was rejecting me because I'm 25 with no work history and I got a felony on top of my record.” It wasn't until 2014 that someone took a chance on him. His spiritual awakening came through tragedy - the death of his uncle following a violent confrontation rooted in pride and money. A divine encounter at Camp Shalom in March 2012 changed everything, leading to complete sobriety and a new life purpose.
Understanding the unique struggles of grieving fathers, Harris and his wife created Dads Against Crime with comprehensive support services.
"We sat down and we said, 'what's the first thing an individual may need if they lose a child?' And we said, 'well, they would need therapy.'" The organization provides a year of free counseling with extensions based on individual needs.
"Mentally, men, we suffer the most. We kill ourselves the most, more than women and children," he explains, noting that men are culturally conditioned to suppress emotions. "It's okay to cry. It's okay to be a man. You can cry," Harris insists, sharing how therapy helped to free him from PTSD and paranoia.
Harris recognizes healing requires more than therapy. Employment assistance became another cornerstone of his work with other men. Having faced countless rejections himself, Harris understood the desperation: "When I would fill out applications, the jobs would either say, oh, you don't have any work experience…or you're a felon." He challenges society's bootstrap mentality with a powerful question he posed to a skeptical millionaire: "What happens if you don't own a pair of boots?"
In 2024 alone, Dads Against Crime achieved 59 job placements providing not just employment but complete support including uniforms, tools -- and work boots -- for the first two weeks.
Dads Against Crime has expanded to include cybersecurity training, financial literacy, life coaching, manufacturing skills and felony expungements for Kansas and Missouri. "Men need to be loved unconditionally just like women and children," says Harris. "No strings attached." The organization hopes to broaden its reach into other U.S. cities in coming years.
"If we fix the brokenness in our men, then what we do in return is we fix our community -- since it is our men who are destroying them."
