We were lucky to catch up with Andre Harris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andre , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Dads Against Crime wasn’t born out of a business plan. It was born out of pain, experience, and a desire to solve a problem that I felt nobody was talking about. Before I started Dads Against Crime, I lived a completely different life. I dropped out of school, sold drugs from the age of 14 until I was 25, spent years homeless, and made more than my share of bad decisions. I experienced violence, trauma, loss, and the consequences that come with living in the streets. By the grace of God, I was able to turn my life around, but I never forgot where I came from or the people who were still struggling. The idea for Dads Against Crime came after the tragic murder of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro in Kansas City. Like many people, I was heartbroken. But while everyone was talking about the loss, I noticed something that stuck with me. People were asking how the mother, family, and community were doing, but very few were asking how the father was doing.
That question wouldn’t leave me alone. I went home and talked with my wife, Nikita, and I told her, “We have to do something for these fathers.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized there was a gap. There were organizations helping women. There were organizations helping children. There were organizations focused on crime and violence. But there weren’t many organizations focused on helping fathers heal, especially fathers carrying grief, trauma, anger, and pain. What excited me wasn’t the idea of starting another nonprofit. What excited me was creating a brotherhood. I wanted men to have a place where they could be honest about what they were going through without being judged. I wanted fathers to know they didn’t have to suffer in silence.
We started by helping men get access to therapy because I believed healing had to come first. As we worked with more men, we realized therapy alone wasn’t enough. Many of the fathers we served also needed jobs, mentorship, help navigating child support issues, felony expungement services, and people who genuinely cared about their success. That’s when Dads Against Crime began to grow into what it is today. People often ask me why I believed it would work. The answer is simple: I was the person we were trying to help. I understood the pain. I understood the trauma. I understood what it felt like to be overlooked and counted out. When you’ve lived the problem, you see the solution differently. What makes Dads Against Crime unique is that we don’t just address one issue. We understand that men are dealing with multiple challenges at the same time. A father may need therapy, a job, mentorship, and help rebuilding relationships with his children. We focus on helping the whole man because when a man heals, families heal, and when families heal, communities become stronger.
Today, Dads Against Crime provides therapy, employment services, mentorship, assistance with felony expungement, and other support to help men rebuild their lives. But at its core, our mission hasn’t changed. We exist to help fathers heal, grow, and become the men their families and communities need them to be.
What started as a response to tragedy became a movement built on hope, accountability, restoration, and the belief that every man deserves an opportunity to change his story.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My name is Andre Harris, and I’m the founder of Dads Against Crime, a nonprofit organization based in Kansas City that helps men rebuild their lives through therapy, employment services, mentorship, felony expungement assistance, and other support programs. My path into this work wasn’t traditional. I didn’t graduate from college or come from a nonprofit background. In fact, I spent much of my early life making poor decisions. I dropped out of school, sold drugs from the age of 14 until I was 25, experienced homelessness, and spent years living a lifestyle that was destructive to myself and others. Looking back, I was the exact type of person society often gives up on. Everything changed when I made the decision to change my life. Through faith, accountability, and the support of people who believed in me, I began rebuilding my future. As I grew, I realized that many men were struggling with the same issues I once faced—trauma, grief, unemployment, mental health challenges, broken relationships, and a lack of support systems. That’s what led me to create Dads Against Crime. What sets us apart is that we don’t just focus on one problem. Most people don’t struggle with only one issue. A man may need therapy, but he may also need a job. He may need mentorship. He may need help navigating child support or clearing up mistakes from his past. We take a whole-person approach because real transformation happens when you address the root causes, not just the symptoms. One of the things I’m most proud of is that our organization is built by people who understand the struggles many of our participants face because we’ve lived them ourselves. We don’t look down on people. We walk beside them. We believe that a person’s worst mistake shouldn’t define the rest of their life. Through Dads Against Crime, we’ve helped men access therapy, find employment, receive mentorship, and begin rebuilding relationships with their families and communities. But beyond the numbers, what I’m most proud of are the lives that have changed. Watching a father reconnect with his children, seeing a man get his first job in years, or hearing someone say they finally feel hopeful again—that’s what makes this work meaningful. If there’s one thing I want people to know about our organization and me, it’s that we believe in second chances. We believe people can change. We believe families can heal. We believe communities become safer when men are given the tools, support, and opportunities they need to succeed.
At the end of the day, Dads Against Crime is about more than preventing crime. It’s about restoring hope, rebuilding fathers, and helping men become the leaders their families and communities need them to be.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

This is probably my favorite question because the story is both funny and meaningful. My co-founder is my wife, Nikita Harris, and believe it or not, we met through the dating section on Craigslist. Most people laugh when they hear that, and honestly, we do too. If someone had told us back then that we’d end up married, raising a family, and building a nonprofit together, neither of us would have believed it. What started as a conversation turned into a friendship, then a relationship, and eventually a partnership that has helped shape every part of my life.
When people look at Dads Against Crime, they often see me because I’m the one doing interviews, speaking at events, and serving as the public face of the organization. What many people don’t see is that none of this would exist without Nikita. When Dads Against Crime was just an idea in my heart, we were saving money to buy our first home. We had worked hard and had put together about $17,000 for a down payment. Most people would have protected that money and focused on their own future. Instead, my wife did something I’ll never forget. She believed in the vision God had placed on my heart and allowed us to use that money to help build Dads Against Crime. She gave up her dream so that other people could have a chance to pursue theirs.
That wasn’t a small sacrifice. That was our future home. That was security. That was something we had worked toward together. But she saw the need, she saw my passion for helping these men, and she chose to support the mission. Over the years, there have been countless nights when I was out in the community, attending meetings, helping families, responding to crises, or working to build the organization. During those times, she was at home taking care of our children, making sure they got to school, managing our household, and holding everything together behind the scenes. Even today, she continues to do the work that many people never see. She’s writing grants, helping shape strategy, solving problems, and helping move the organization forward. While I may be the face of Dads Against Crime, she is absolutely the brains behind much of what we do.
One thing I think men sometimes fail to do is give proper honor to the women who stand beside them. Too often, people celebrate the person standing at the podium and forget the person making sacrifices behind the scenes. I never want to make that mistake. Nikita is my co-founder, my wife, and my best friend outside of Christ. She believed in this mission before most people knew it existed. She invested in it when there were no guarantees. She sacrificed for it when there was no recognition. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t believe Dads Against Crime would be where it is today without her. This organization is as much her story as it is mine, and I will always be grateful for that.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I lived a life that most people die trying to survive. I’ve fought my way from homelessness to running a nonprofit organization. I’ve lost 22 friends to the streets, violence, addiction, and poor choices, yet somehow, by the grace of God, I didn’t lose my mind. When I look back on my life, resilience isn’t something I learned—it’s something I had to live. The truth is, I spent years using that resilience for the wrong purpose. I used it to survive in environments that were destroying me. I used it to push through situations that were leading me further away from the man God called me to be. But God has a way of taking what was meant for one purpose and reshaping it for another. Today, I believe no pain should be wasted. Every scar, every setback, every loss, every struggle has value if we allow God to use it. Pain isn’t something we’re supposed to stay trapped in. It’s something we’re supposed to grow through. Pain is the concrete, and we are the roses. Even surrounded by hardship, we can still bloom. One of the reasons I love trees so much is that they remind me of resilience. A tree has to grow in two directions at the same time. It grows upward toward the light, but it also grows downward into the darkness. It needs both. Most people want the light, but nobody wants the darkness. The reality is that the darkness is where the roots are formed. The deeper the roots, the stronger the tree. The stronger the roots, the more storms the tree can survive. That’s how life works, too. Some of the strongest parts of who I am were developed during the darkest seasons of my life. Homelessness taught me perseverance. Loss taught me gratitude. Failure taught me humility. Pain taught me compassion. The darkness didn’t destroy me. It developed me.
That’s the message I try to share with the men we serve through Dads Against Crime. Your pain doesn’t have to be your prison. Your struggle doesn’t have to be your identity. What you’re going through today may actually be preparing you for who you’re meant to become tomorrow. Don’t run from the darkness. Grow through it.
Because sometimes the very thing that feels like it’s burying you is actually planting you. And if you’re planted, that means there’s still growth ahead.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dadsagainstcrime.org

Image Credits

Andre Harris Dads Against Crime