Help a young mother, and you change her child's life.
Glow-Up Academy works with women under 25 who are leaving jails throughout rural Nevada. The people who benefit most are their children.
The child is the point.
When a young mother cycles in and out of jail, her child serves the sentence too. Unstable housing. Changing schools. A string of adults coming and going, many with their own histories of jail, drugs, and alcohol. Few steady role models. In rural Nevada, where services are thin and the distances are long, these children have even less to fall back on.
Researchers count a parent's incarceration among the adverse childhood experiences linked to poverty, housing instability, poor school performance, and depression. More than 5 million American children have had a parent in jail or prison. (Annie E. Casey Foundation, A Shared Sentence, 2016)
Glow-Up Academy exists to break that pattern where it starts: by giving the mother a real second chance while her child is still young enough for it to change everything.
How Glow-Up Academy works
1. Connect at release
A judge, probation officer, public defender, or jail staff member refers a young woman to Glow-Up Academy before or at her release.
2. A safe place to live
She and her child move into stable housing, not back to the situation that led to jail in the first place.
3. Basic needs covered
Food, clothing, and household essentials, so survival stops crowding out everything else.
4. A path forward
Education, work, parenting support, and mentors who stay. Steady adults in her life become steady adults in her child's life.
Where things stand
We would rather tell you exactly what exists than promise what doesn't.
ALREADY IN PLACE
- Housing and basic necessities, through the homes and partner churches of Love Thy Neighbor, already serving people in need in Pahrump.
- A complete program plan, ready to share with any partner who asks.
- Community recognition: the Faith in Action Community Award from Knights of Columbus Council 10780, May 2026.
WHAT WE NEED
- A referral partnership with Nye County courts, probation, and the public defender, so young women leaving jail know Glow-Up Academy exists.
- Access to the women themselves, through an approved program at the Nye County Detention Center.
- Mentors and volunteers from churches and service organizations across Nevada.
Faith in Action Community Award, Knights of Columbus Council 10780, May 2026
How you can help
Courts, probation & public defenders
Refer young women to Glow-Up Academy at sentencing or release. A place to go is often the difference between a fresh start and a return trip.
Sheriff's Office
Let us meet young women before release, through a program that works within your rules and schedule. Fewer returns means fewer beds filled.
Churches & Knights of Columbus councils
Provide mentors, volunteers, and a voice to local leaders. The work was first recognized by one council; it grows through many.
County leaders & the community
Learn the plan, ask hard questions, and help us build something Nye County can be proud of.
Who we are
Glow-Up Academy is a program of WDJAS Project, Inc., a faith-based nonprofit in Pahrump, Nevada, and works alongside its sister program, Love Thy Neighbor. Help is offered to anyone who qualifies, regardless of religious belief.
It is led by Edward Bevilacqua, J.D., a Nevada Certified Community Health Worker with almost 20 years in frontline ministry, including more than 11,000 hours teaching in state and county correctional facilities.
Let's talk
Tell us who you are and we'll follow up personally with the program plan and a time to meet.
Glow-Up Academy · A program of WDJAS Project, Inc. · Pahrump, Nevada
edward@whatdidjesusactuallysay.org · 775.238.3525
