It was a battle that took years to win. Survivors of Florida's Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, along with a second campus in Okeechobee, are expected to receive financial compensation by next year for the decades of abuse they've endured. The state of Florida is providing financial restitution through a $20 million compensation program after lawmakers agreed to form one this year. In October, survivors gathered in St. Petersburg for their annual reunion. Some survivors believe this could be their last one. There, survivors reflected on the past, the impact on the present and the hopes for the future after recounting stories of beatings, sexual violence and torture. 10 Tampa Bay spoke with five survivors who came from different places, but their paths would cross at the same cruel spot in Marianna. Don Stratton of Gibsonton was only 13 years old when he went to Marianna. Lorenzo Killens of St. Pete was 11. Charles Robert Lynn, also of St. Pete, was 13 years old. However, the trauma from the past has followed them their entire lives. To this day, there are horrors survivors cannot share. "The pain lasted my entire life. I'm actually crippled from it. From the beatings that they gave us," Stratton said. Survivors recounted receiving as many as 50 licks. Lynn said the beatings were so bad, that sitting down for a month wasn't possible. He said he spent two years at Dozier before being ordered to go back again. That time, he said he asked the judge to bring him to Okeechobee hoping for relief. "I jumped out the frying pan screaming to the fire," Lynn said. "It was no different. Sexual assault, brutality, unnecessary whooping." MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/dozier-white-house-boys-school-survivors-marianna-okeechobee/67-ef7bc031-0dbf-4cf6-b0fd-cc42b8192cf1