When Yuri Williams was 8 years old, his mother sometimes took him with her to work at the Los Angeles County’s Central Juvenile Hall when she couldn’t find a sitter. Lynda C. Hubbard worked there, with troubled children and young adults as a juvenile correctional officer, for more than three decades.
“There was this one big guy banging on the walls in his room,” Williams recalled, who is now 46 and lives in Signal Hill. “My mom walked in and asked him what was going on and he just started crying and she was holding this much bigger person in her arms.”
Williams ended up following in his mother’s footsteps, becoming a deputy juvenile correctional officer for the Orange County Probation Department. Over the years, he sought guidance from his mother, who told him how to speak with those in custody, how to help the boys and girls.
When Hubbard died from cancer in 2009, Williams fell into a deep depression for five years.
“One day I was just sitting there and tried calling her phone and just started crying,” Williams said.
But his mom’s lessons inspired him.
In 2017, Williams began donning the costumes of superheroes and other iconic figures to raise the spirits of others who are fighting their own battles. A year later, he launched his nonprofit, A Future Superhero and Friends, to try and cover the costs of such things as donations and his travel. If he lassos big donors, he wants to create an after-school program of some sort.
“My mom always told me when you do something, try to do it different from others,” Williams said. “I figured by wearing a costume it could be a distraction, because it was rare that people see others in costume coming out to help.”
His started off locally, visiting families and children’s hospitals in Southern California, dressed as characters such as Spider-Man, Deadpool and the Mandalorian.
In February, Williams rolled in three large bins of plush toys — Santa Clauses, unicorns and others — through the…
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