CHOICEs is transforming Manchester’s youth through mentorship and second chances

Evenor Pineda seeks to prevent young Manchester residents from following dangerous paths through their adolescence into adulthood.

A youth mentorship and court diversion program, founded and operated in partnership between Manchester Police Department and formerly incarcerated individuals, hopes to effect a cultural change in the city’s young people.

CHOICEs (Creating Hope, Opportunities, Inspiring Change, Excellence, & Success), co-facilitated by Evenor Pineda, seeks to prevent young Manchester residents from following dangerous paths through their adolescence into adulthood, which could potentially set their lives onto a negative course through incarceration.

The program’s inception was sparked as a reaction to increased reports of gang-related activity among teens in Manchester’s school district, where it became clear that direct intervention was necessary to uncover and untangle the roots of this systemic issue. In January 2023, just as the program was first gaining its legs, an explosive gang-related fight at Central High School referred a dozen kids to CHOICEs at once, launching the program rapidly.

CHOICEs expands upon the original state standards of youth diversion that merely require students to attend weekly group sessions for little more than 60 minutes. Instead, participants are exposed to alternative concepts of growth, team building and skill development. Teens opting into the CHOICEs program are individually matched with community mentors whose journeys are similar to their own.

Employing the wisdom, knowledge and hindsight of their own lived experiences, the team of mentors come from diverse backgrounds, all of whom have experience moving through the correctional system at a point in their lives. Bolstering trust and positive adult relationships for youth at these critical stages in the prelude to their lives has shown to be a key piece in anchoring youth into their communities and growing maturity.

“These young people do not have positive role models in their lives. They don’t have those people that can really speak to them from shared experiences,” Pineda said previously to Manchester Ink Link.

“These young people do not have positive role models in their lives. They don’t have those people that can really speak to them from shared experiences.”

Over the course of a one-year commitment, CHOICEs’ wraparound approach takes mentorship into the community, with Pineda and other mentors offering home visits, support at court appearances, and even casual meet-ups at the mall food court. Creating positive pillars for teens to rely on in times of trouble, call to for advice, and keep them on course before they falter, CHOICEs mentors provide a touchstone between two worlds for students feeling at odds in adolescence.

While the support systems CHOICEs carves out are predominantly meant to serve Manchester’s court-involved teens and young adults, the light the program shines spreads beyond just the kids. Pineda found peace and new growth through building similar connections and support systems in the community after beginning the release process from a prior conviction in 2019.

Growing up in Nashua, his early life mirrors that of the kids in his program — being involved in local gang culture and running the streets with friends between stints in correctional facilities. Arrested at 23 for manslaughter, Pineda served 15 years between Manchester’s Valley Street Jail and Concord’s men’s prison before his release.

Manchester Police Athletic League, who houses the CHOICEs program, had just taken over New Hampshire’s juvenile court diversion program of Manchester in 2018; an amorphous role in the city that had originally sought to intervene in the sentences of first-time, nonviolent offenders, but has grown in scope with the program’s changing oversight.

In 2020, as Pineda was beginning his transition out of the prison system, his first experience with MPAL was as one of many guest speakers with lived experience brought in for a newly piloted concept called Futures, intended to be a once-a-week skills and mentoring program for court-involved teens and young adults.

The voice, support and advocacy of others, like his own mentor and CHOICEs co-facilitator Jayna Stevens, helped shape Pineda’s path following incarceration. His strong relationships and growth throughout his time in prison created a strong connection to corrections staff, who in turn advocated for and created pathways for him to shine. Recommended by his own correctional officers to Stevens, Pineda was highlighted as the perfect candidate to share his experiences with young adults in the school system.

The one-time invitation morphed over time, with Pineda invited to pop back in for continued visits until he found himself a part of the tapestry of the group.

“I just started showing up every Wednesday,” Pineda said. “I never even thought of it.” Originally stepping in only as a volunteer at Futures, Pineda even shaped his working schedule to accommodate visits to the program.

“It was a no-brainer,” he said.

As the fresh and nebulous idea continued to blossom in its early development, his increased involvement, passion and devotion earned him an offer for a full-time position within the MPAL team, where he now sits overseeing CHOICEs as the only full-time employee.

Former Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg, who recently accepted a leadership position at Easterseals NH & VT, is a champion of the CHOICEs program and helped sustain the pilot program with ARPA funding. Photo by Carol Robidoux

CHOICEs, alongside the rest of the Manchester Police Athletic League’s programming for students, places a focus on providing kids with an array of activity outlets and skill-building through volunteer-run groups. The facility boasts a full-scale boxing and martial arts gym in the basement hosting classes and intensives multiple times a week, alongside a halfpipe, full-size wrestling mats and more; all complete with all the equipment necessary for students of any age to participate, removing many barriers to entry.

Older students are given free reign in the gym facilities to create their own workout plan or are invited to tap into boxing drills and train up for matches. The boxing gym is also available for members of the Manchester police force to continue their training, providing students with interaction and positive connections with officers in their community. Police officers likewise build rapport and trust among the young people of the neighborhoods they are meant to serve.

The impact of Pineda and his team of mentors’ work with CHOICEs youth, alongside the swath of opportunities provided in all of MPAL’s programming, is apparent in the community. Former chief of police Allen Aldenberg attributed Manchester’s impressive statistic of zero gun deaths in 2024 to the immense load carried and eased by CHOICEs and other vital city programs.

With increased funding as they continue to search for grants, the team only hopes to expand into further cities, with Pineda hoping to bring the program home to the same streets he used to trap on in Nashua. The care, kindness and empathy CHOICEs and Pineda extend into the city has a cyclical impact that they hope will continue to grow and shape New Hampshire’s cities with generational change.

This article was featured in 603 Diversity.

603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.

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