Krasnow helps deliver $500,000 for program to keep kids on track.

They're dropped off at Queensboro Plaza in the middle of the night with only their clothes and a three ride MetroCard and oftentimes, no one there to meet them.

This is the cold and lonely initiation back into society many young people face after having been incarcerated or having served time in detention at Rikers Island. Often without high school diplomas, these virtual outcasts find they're met with an arduous task trying to reverse the course of their lives. Without a helping hand, it's a life change that many won't be able to make.

Trammell Crow executive vice president and director of tri-state brokerage, Ken Krasnow wants to help change that. Last week, he chaired a dinner at Cipriani 23rd Street in honor of rap luminary, Russell Simons, that raised roughly $500,000 for Friends of Island Academy, a non-profit group organized to help young people who have had brushes with the law assimilate back into society and find careers.

"These kids, they made a mistake," said Krasnow, who is vice president of the academy's board of directors. "When they get out, they often feel totally alienated. This is a program that helps them get on track, it gives them support at a critical time when they have a chance to turn their lives around."

According to FOIA, it costs $80,000 a year to support an inmate but just $5,000 for its programs which provide job training and placement, mentoring, and counseling. "Even in terms of just pure economics, this is something that makes sense," Krasnow said. "With the money we raise we'll be able to help more and more kids."