A buck can go a long way when you are trying to change the life of kid.

So as legislators debate about where -- or whether -- to find the money to pay for Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s new plan to reduce youth violence, faith-based organizations say to anyone who doubts that they are doing a good job that the proof is in the pudding.

It’s afternoon in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side, and on one block, kids fill the streets, laughing and riding their bikes.

In a halfway house nearby, four registered sex offenders are inside, watching TV or sleeping.

This is a common scenario in this low-income community, in which more than 300 sex offenders live.

It is no secret that the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center has issues. The more than 400 children under 16 sentenced to the facility deal with poor staffing and a bleak environment every day.

After months of arguing, county officials put down their boxing gloves Wednesday to discuss how to improve center facilities --making the kids the priority.

"We have to stop fighting--we are only fighting ourselves," County Commissioner Joseph Moreno said.

School is a joke, and getting suspended is an easy, cool way to get free days off while impressing the ladies.

That is what Senn High School sophomore David Shamon thought before he faced a jury of his fellow students last year.

“I didn’t get what I was doing was wrong,” Shamon said. “Kids and adults don’t listen to each other a lot of times, but when people the same age with the same mind tell you what’s up—it clicks.”