We recently connected with Reina Jackson and have shared our conversation below.
Reina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
The AJ Project, Inc. was conceived in belief and hope.
On May 28, 2021, my firstborn child, Ajanni Cabrera, was killed in a single vehicle crash. He was racing another car on the freeway, reaching speeds in excess of 100 mph, when he crashed into a sound barrier. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and he was ejected from his car.
Finding out that my son had transitioned to heaven was the most traumatic event of my life. There are no words in any human language that will even come close to describe what I experienced that night. I had to tell my other children that their brother was gone and it was like reliving that death again. We all died that night. All of us.
As the details of Ajanni’s death began to be revealed to me – the racing, the reckless driving, the non-wearing of a seatbelt, my sorrow intensified. Ajanni didn’t have to die. However, his driving habits, as harmless fun as Ajanni may have mistakenly judged them to be, came with death as a companion. In the days and weeks and months following Ajanni’s crash, I began to notice a pattern; young adults, mostly 22 and under, were dying horrific deaths in motor vehicle fatalities in which illegal street racing and reckless driving were the causes of the crash. These young lives didn’t have to end. Their families didn’t have to experience the trauma.
Illegal Street Racing and Reckless Driving became my enemy. I knew it was time to fight back. My family and I started The AJ Project, Inc. This is our vehicle in the race to eradicate illegal street racing and reckless driving amongst teens and young adults.
It is a formidable enemy. In 2021, the same year of Ajanni’s crash, 2,116 drivers ages 15 – 20 years old were killed and an estimated 203,000 were injured, in motor vehicle crashes. In 2022, motor vehicle crashes were THE leading cause of death for young women, ages 13-19 years old and the second leading cause of death for young men of the same age range. 50% of young adult drivers who died were found to be unbuckled and the ejection rates for young adults involved in crashes were increasing. Today, we see its blatant proliferation in monetized social media accounts that target young adults and in exasperated police agencies and government officials trying to mitigate its spread. One politician said, “he is at his wits end” over this growing plague.
Through our Social Media Awareness Campaigns, Online Driving Safety Course and Street Outreach, we are Sharing Straight Truth on the deadly dangers of illegal street racing & reckless driving to naive young adults and their unsuspecting parents. We have also been blessed to appear on The Dr. Phil show, set up tents at community fairs and events and partner with law enforcement agencies.
We have had the privilege of teaching presentations at high schools and we are hopeful to have more opportunities to Share Straight Truth on high school campuses throughout the nation.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a mother who loves her children. I am a mother who fights for her children. And, I believe God.
A mother’s love for her child(ren), is eternal. Though I know that Ajanni is safe in heaven, I miss him every day. If I had my way, Ajanni would be here today. But, my son is in heaven. The AJ Project, Inc. is here so that another mother will have the truth, the resources and the opportunity to prevent illegal street racing and reckless driving from destroying their sons/daughters lives.
I pour my love for Ajanni into The AJ Project, Inc. It is what gives me the boldness to do outreach, to advocate and to educate. It is what allows me to keep going in the midst of obstacles, challenges and deficits. It is what gives me the patience and the strength to confront the negative stigma that many of my generation and older have towards the young adults who are lured into this death-style (I call illegal street racing and reckless driving culture a death-style). There is a false belief that only young adults from certain social, economic, racial backgrounds participate in this death-style. The truth is, ALL young adults from all walks of life can become ensnared.
I have been given amazing opportunities to publicly discuss our work. The privilege that I have right now in sharing my story in CanvasRebel, is one such opportunity that I am grateful for. However, it is those things that I do in private, behind closed doors, that I am most proud of. I will always remember sitting with a mother whose daughter died in a crash. She didn’t speak English and my Spanish is broken. But, our hearts communicated in a language that only bereaved mothers understood. We exchanged shirts. In life, mothers exchange phone numbers with each other. But for bereaved mothers, we exchange shirts. I have several shirts of young adults, gone too soon from motor vehicle crashes. I hope and believe that one day, The AJ Project, Inc. will win this race and I won’t have to exchange any shirt with another mom ever again.
I’ve always loved reading, writing and photography. I love people. I love listening to their stories and their experiences while sharing of myself. Today, I utilize these gifts to be able to tell our story and influence a generation (and a nation) to slam the breaks on illegal street racing and reckless driving.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
The AJ Project, Inc. was funded on love, hope, belief and prayer. My husband and I gave our own money to self-finance the work; we still do to this day.
We are a 501c3 nonprofit and I was confident that donations would just start flowing in once we received that designation. I was surprised at the amount of fundraising activities a 501c3 has to do to even just tread water! We are so grateful for the individuals who have donated to The AJ Project, Inc. We continue to optimize our Fundraising Strategy to afford the communities we serve the opportunity to give into this critical mission and the work. Recently, we became recognized as a 501c3 in the PayPal Giving system and we hope that we will begin to see an influx in charitable giving. All of the impact and influence that we have made thus far on the donations we have received is incredible. We are excited to increase the work and reach as the tax deductible giving increases.
The link for our PayPal giving is here. If anyone is moved to give, please do so. Every dollar counts. Every dollar is needed. Every dollar goes to funding the mission.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There are so many stories of resilience that I can share with you. But before I do, I want you to know that the resilience is not mine, it is God’s. Things changed so quickly; I went from helping my son plan his career to planning funeral arrangements in the blink of an eye. The only reason why I am still here today is because of my faith in God.
I want to share this story of resilience which just happened to me on June 26, 2025. I was doing outreach and a gentleman was kind enough to stop and listen. Actually, he said that we could “walk and talk”. As I started talking, he stopped walking. And he began to stare intently at the handout of the picture of Ajanni and I. He asked me “was this the crash that happened on the 215”? That question caught me offguard and caused me to pause; perhaps I had spoken to him before and he remembered my story? No. His “ex-wife was behind Ajanni at the time of the crash, she saw the whole thing”. And he remembered it as if it were yesterday,
I froze. And was speechless.
Earlier in the article, I shared with you that Ajanni was ejected from his vehicle. When he said that his ex-wife “saw the whole thing”, this is what he was referring too. I began to think about the trauma that his ex-wife experienced. The trauma that he and their children experienced, as she navigated through the trauma, the shock, the grief, the anger, maybe even the hopelessness, that came upon her that night.
I wondered if she thought that she saw only the end of Ajanni’s life? Did she know that she was witness to a beginning? Did she know about The AJ Project, Inc.? Did she know about the incredible work that we are doing so that others, people like her, would NEVER have to “see the whole thing”?
The gentleman’s words instantly transported me back to that night of May 28, 2021. In a flash, I saw the journey I walked from May 28, 2021 to that present moment, 4 years later. That is resilience.
Illegal street racing and reckless driving tried to kill my family. It took Ajanni’s body but it didn’t take his life. We have endured so much hardships and struggle; emotionally, mentally, financially, because of his crash AND because we won’t drop out of the race. That is resilience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.TheAJProject.us
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/The.AJ.Project.Inc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The.AJ.Project.Inc
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theajprojectinc
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.aj.project.in?_t=ZT-8xZOT8BReko&_r=1
