Melynn Schuyler's first job in New Mexico was, to say the least, a bit unusual.

It was back in the mid-1980s and Schuyler — now the executive director of YouthWorks in Santa Fe — was a pre-med student at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Schuyler, a professor and a few other students spent the summer camping near Ruidoso and Cimarron, trapping and slaughtering gophers to analyze their colonies' DNA.

"I got positioned at the end of the gopher eviscerating line," said Schuyler, laughing at the memory. "It was my job to crush the males' balls and put them in the centrifuge."

Despite the somewhat distasteful beginning, Schuyler fell in love with the state. She soon dropped pre-med, moved to Japan for awhile, and majored in international relations at Boston College before returning to the Phillips Graduate Institute in Los Angeles for a degree in psychotherapy.

Schuyler returned to New Mexico — this time Santa Fe — about 15 years ago after the Rodney King riots in L.A. soured her on that city. She worked for a couple of Santa Fe's nonprofit organizations, which she said allowed her to see what wasn't working for the city's troubled youth. So she started YouthWorks in 2001 to try and remedy the situation.

"My focus has always been on youth," she said in a recent interview at the shabby, somewhat chaotic one-room portable on Agua Fría Street that functions as YouthWorks headquarters. "I started to see who was getting shoved out ... (and) thrown away and forgotten about."

Schuyler's nomination as one of the 10 Who Made A Difference came from YouthWorks board president Laine Renfro Sedillo, who called her "extremely professional" and someone who does what she says.

"... Melynn comes by her compassion for the down-and-out personally and professionally," Sedillo wrote in her nomination letter. "She is seen by the youth of the community as a mom, co-worker, boss and confidant."

YouthWorks began serving about 50 kids a year who had problems that weren't going to be solved "by just going to shoot hoops in a rec program," she said. Most of the kids had little or no parental support, were involved in gangs and drugs or had been in the juvenile-justice system, Schuyler said.

"There's a huge stigma against these kids," she said. "They dress in black, they wear saggy pants, they have tattoos or piercings and they look at you with that death stare. It's all fear on their part."

Since most of those kids had been failed by society's institutions — schools, their families, the police, the juvenile-justice system — and labeled as failures or troublemakers, YouthWorks core tenet is a decided sense of nonjudgment, Schuyler said.

"I don't even want to know what people's records are," she said. "If we can help in any way to take steps forward, we'll do it. These kids are not going to get on a bus to Denver. They're not going anywhere."

Another main key to YouthWorks is flexibility. The organization has a "fairly heavy intake process," Schuyler said, which allows staff members to evaluate each person's individual needs and decide if the person is actually ready for help.

"Your guts tell you the kid's not really in the door," she said. "But we dive in on kids who are really ready."

Sometimes that means GED classes, or a job helping clean up and beautify the Santa Fe River. Other times it means providing a pillar of positive support for a kid who otherwise has no one to turn to.

"We can help you discover what you're good at," Schuyler said.

The program's reputation has gotten around in the past seven years; YouthWorks now serves about 400 kids a year. The program's budget just passed the $1 million mark in October, she said.

"That's a big milestone for us," Schuyler said. "It's exciting, but it's also a large burden."

The burden comes in running a nonprofit whose budget is cobbled together from various grants and contracts. Earlier this month, Schuyler and her staff members had to lay off about 15 people when city officials balked at providing the final $36,000 of a $200,000 contract signed last year to clean up the Santa Fe River.

"I carry all the stress," Schuyler said.

Still, the benefits far outweigh the burdens, she said.

"It's like an adrenaline rush to try and save a kid," Schuyler said.

Schuyler, 43, said people in Santa Fe are often surprised to find a blond, Anglo woman running YouthWorks.

"Sometimes I go into a meeting and people are dumbfounded that I'm the one," she said.

Echo Gallegos, 15, said she was initially surprised that Schuyler was a white woman.

"I used to judge her by the way she looks," Gallegos said. Now, she thinks Schuyler is "cool," she said.

Echo said both of her parents are incarcerated and that before she began coming to YouthWorks in the spring, she just didn't care what happened to her.

"Because of them, I passed middle school," she said of the organization. "I've had most of my best experiences here. No one else really helps us."

Georgie Vigil, 15, said the program is valuable to him because many staff members have experienced what he and others have gone through and can relate to their problems.

Jonathan Miera, also 15, credited YouthWorks with getting him into school and getting him a job that puts a little money in his pocket. However, Jonathan also recognized a deeper lesson.

"They teach you respect," he said.

And that is one of YouthWorks' main goals.

"We're running this place for young people to see they're worthy," Schuyler said. "Even the worst dirty, rotten criminal kid who's been in here has been able to give something back to the community. A kid can't be expected to step up for the community if they're not valued."