This year’s A1F Freedom Award went to John Annoni, a now-retired elementary school teacher who spent his life using the American gun culture to save inner-city kids.
Annoni founded Camp Compass Academy in 1994 as an afterschool program to help elementary school kids. When the school he worked in told him he could talk to kids about guns on school property, he found a nearby carpet store with an open top floor that was a short walk from the school.
I first met him as his elementary school was letting its students out to waiting buses. John grabbed my hand and I met his open eyes and genuine smile. He has a warmth that draws people to him. Students were surrounding him in the halls and following him. Some had questions, but most just wanted to be around him. I met many of his then students before we went a few blocks away to his academy.
On my visit, I asked to meet some of his former students. I wanted to meet adults—the program had by then be ongoing for nearly two decades—so I could gauge its longtime impact. I ended up in a series of meetings—each one on one—with young adults who all told me the same thing: that if it wasn’t for John’s Camp Compass they’d probably be dead or in jail like so many of their childhood friends.
I participated in the class and saw that, by using the gun culture NRA members know so well, he was teaching kids individual responsibility, accountability, a willingness to put off instant gratification in the pursuit of substantive goals and more.
In this interview, John talks about his methodology and how he is now working to bring Camp Compass to other neighborhoods throughout the country.
