Growing up in Detroit, George remembers his mother getting on the city bus to go to her job downtown and telling him that he could build something better.
“My mom would tell me I could be somebody,” George says. “She believed that.”
Having only met his father twice, it fell on George’s mother to raise him and his three siblings, and his grandparents, who worked for Detroit public schools. They would always stress that an education is the most important thing to have in life.
Unfortunately, George struggled badly in school due to a learning disability; he could read well, but couldn’t understand or remember what he read.
Like an inner city tale told again and again in the US, George quit school, started to drink and use drugs, hung out with the wrong crowd, and went in and out of jail. Shortly after turning 18, George was involved in a dispute with rival drug dealers when a stray bullet struck and killed an innocent bystander.
Although he didn’t pull the trigger, George was sentenced to life in prison without parole for being at the scene of the crime. “That day changed my life forever,” says George. “I had a three-year-old daughter and a family I would never see again as a free man.”
George tells me that during the first 10 years of his sentence, he was living like he was on the streets: selling drugs, fighting, making wine. “I didn’t do one positive thing during that time.”
Then something changed. George established a relationship with Jesus Christ and got accepted into a horticulture program at the institution, working in the greenhouse, tending the vegetable gardens that fed the prison kitchen. The program would give fresh vegetables to local families who were less fortunate; they also helped the nearby domestic violence shelter and neighborhood kids with food insecurity.
George went on to teach the horticulture program for 14 years, and says that when he would get a thank you note from the children it shined a light in a dark place.
“I turned my life around because I had a purpose once I started teaching others how to garden,” George says. “I earned one hundred certificates in everything from horticulture to motivational speaking."
Decades passed, and one day while serving his 34th year of incarceration, George’s lawyer informed him that he was being released due to a law change surrounding juveniles with life in prison.
“I had accepted that I would never get out of prison, and suddenly I had a date to leave," says George. “Walking out after 35 years, I felt overwhelming love seeing all my family and friends waiting for me to come home.”
A friend who was working for the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in Detroit told George to come in and check it out. At CEO everything started to come together. George started a transitional job earning daily pay beautifying the city and then went into a landscaping job.
“I was meeting with a job coach every week and CEO was helping me with things like bus fare, a winter coat, clothes for job interviews, and SNAP benefits,” George says.
One day, CEO had a job fair in the Detroit office and a healthcare company told George if he had transportation then he could have a job as a housekeeper…he has now been there for a month.
“They had a trainer show me everything for a week and then I was working on my own,” George says. “I was shown how to disinfect a room and then they came back and tested the surfaces and said I had done a perfect job.”
George showed up on time, had a good attitude, and was dependable. His employer offered him leadership training so that he could be a supervisor, and George was told that he would be trained in every area of the hospital, including wound care, intensive care, and the pharmacy.
Married with a new home and reconnecting with his daughter, George believes that if he can just put his family first and work hard, he will finally have the happy life he’s been seeking all this time.
“Being able to be there for my daughter means the world to me,” says George. “If it wasn’t for CEO, I don’t know how my reentry would have gone. I was able to focus on the things that matter after coming home because of CEO’s support, and the staff in Detroit are amazing.”
Now that George has a quality job that he’s working at continuously, he receives a work retention check each month, which makes a meaningful difference.
“They thought of everything people may need. I’d refer other people to CEO because they prepare you for your transition and give you training and money and support,” says George. “If I could say one thing to the CEO staff it would be: thank you, thank you, thank you. And continue to make a difference in people’s lives.”
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