Deja Garner is a young woman determined to see that Wisconsin is a safer place to live, especially for young people of color. She’s a community outreach coordinator at WAVE (Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort) Educational Fund, a statewide group working to prevent gun violence through education and advocacy. She’s also a team member of FAST (Families and Schools Together) at Hopkins Lloyd Community School, where she worked for City Year when she was with AmeriCorps. It’s a far cry from her original dream of being the first woman to play in the NBA, but she’s making a difference and still playing basketball when she can. After encounters with verbal abuse as a youth, Deja  also founded Stop Rethink Speak, which educates people about the dangers of bullying, whether physical or verbal. Amid the pandemic, she’s had to process the deaths of two former students in a domestic violence shooting that left five people dead.