Kristin Prinn, MSW, LCSW is the Founder and Executive
Director of LUCY Outreach, a nonprofit youth development center for 500 at-risk teens in Camden, NJ.
Kristin moved from Boston to Philadelphia 20 years ago to begin her journey at Saint Joseph’s University,
where she studied Sociology & Criminal Justice, and participated in numerous weekly service and service
immersion experiences throughout Philadelphia, on the Navajo Nation, and her favorite, the United
States/Mexico Border.
Upon graduating, Kristin accepted a position working for the Associate Missionaries of the Assumption, in
the Mexican colonia of Chaparral, New Mexico. She lived and worked in the border region for 3 years,
and was quickly drawn to meeting the needs of gang-involved youth and immigrant families within the
community, in the middle and high schools, as well as on-year in a juvenile prison. Kristin obtained her
Masters in Social Work from New Mexico State University during this time, and became fluent in Spanish.
When Kristin moved back to the Northeast in 2007, she began her work in Youth Ministry at St. Joseph
Pro-Cathedral Parish, while completing 5,000 clinical hours as an in-home therapist on Center for Family
Service’s Multisystemic Therapy team, and obtained her clinical license and became an LCSW.
At this time, “Lifting Up Camden’s Youth” Outreach, affectionately known as “LUCY”, was created. LUCY
was established to address the particular challenges faced by urban youth growing up in one of America’s
poorest and most dangerous cities. Her proudest professional accomplishment has been the incredible
growth and capacity building of LUCY, from a one-staff “youth group” in 2007, to becoming the premier
outreach center for teens in Camden City, currently serving 500 youth annually. Kristin & her team
recently purchased LUCY’s dream 1-acre property, and break ground on the expansion of an additional
10,000 sq. ft. youth center, to serve 1000 youth annually by 2022.
Kristin was the youngest alumna to receive St. Joseph University’s Ignatius Award in 2014, and recently
received awards from the Philadelphia Business Journal, Rutgers University and the 76ers, for her work
with youth in Camden. LUCY has been featured multiple times on ABC, NBC, Fox News, and within the
Philadelphia Inquirer & Courier Post. Kristin and the youth were most excited to be on the Ellen
DeGeneres show, briefly, from Citizens Bank Park last spring!
