Community Hero - Tim Allison and Greg Barragan

Tim Allison is the History and English instructor for Alice M. Worsley School at the Juvenile Justice Campus. Mr. Allison is dedicated to the youth we serve because he sees his younger self in them. He is grateful for the opportunity to pour into the youth so they can see things from a different perspective and return to their respective communities with a different outlook. Tim has a daily goal of showing the youth how much more they are alike than different which helps to maintain a harmonious environment. He reported that of all the accolades he has received, there is nothing more meaningful than seeing life change in students. Mr. Allison says that he is “allegedly” retiring in one to two years; however, is open to staying longer because he loves the job that much. He has worked his entire career at Worsley School, serving the incarcerated youth of Fresno County. We appreciate the impact that he continues to make!
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Greg Barragan is the Welding Instructor at the Alice M. Worsley School at the Juvenile Justice Campus (JJC). Greg’s students, incarcerated youth, respect him and the work he does to help them develop job-ready skills as certified welders. He genuinely wants to see each youth do better and give them an opportunity for a career and to earn money while living as law abiding citizens. He sets goals with each youth to become certified as welders before they are released. Greg knows that transforming youth who have gone down the wrong path takes more than learning a trade. It includes changing their way of thinking and approaching life. Mr. B, as the youth call him, knows all about the life that landed his students at the JJC: gangs, addiction, crime, he did all of this in his youth. He was a gang member when he was 12 years old. In trouble constantly as a teen, he was kicked out of several high schools by the time he was 17. He credits his mother for setting his path straight and steering him into a vocational education welding program at Edison High School. Learning to weld was the difference for him.
In 2019, Mr. B won “Educator of the Year” and approximately 10 of his students attended the ceremony to cheer him on. Assured yet humbled by his role in helping students, Greg offers this analogy of his work: “I’m just a dirty old rag that God is using to clean up some of these lives.”