APPLETON (NBC 26) — When Transition to Success for Ex-offenders started, only around 60 percent of former inmates were finding employment within a year of being released, said Jennifer Marks, Director of Operations for Forward Service Corporation.
"We’re not just trying to help ex-offenders find any employment," she said. "It’s the employment that’s the right fit for them that can build a career.”
Transition to Success offers education and training to ex-offenders, teaching them skills to help them get hired into high-demand and high-wage industries.
“Ex-offenders have probation and parole requirements and things that they have to do," said Marks. “Like people, dreams evolve, people change, so we want to make sure that we’re always looking at the right current dream and we’re making kind of changes based on what their dreams in that given moment.”
The U.S. Venture open, which is just about a month away, has raised 40 million dollars to end poverty in Northeast Wisconsin over the years. Through the U.S. Venture Open’s Basic Needs Giving partnership, Forward Service Corporation has been able to hire a full-time case manager, dedicated just to ex-offenders. The effort to fight poverty has evolved over the years, now focusing on mental health and workforce training, said Greg Vandenberg, U.S. Venture Open Director of Giving and Community Engagement.
“We say, instead of constantly pulling people out of the river, let’s get up the river and fix the bridge," he said. “Prison’s incredibly expensive, and so why aren’t we trying to do some sort of catch program or wrap-around program that as individuals come out of incarceration, we can come alongside them with a case manager, a navigator, and really say, 'What is it that you need?'”
Through working with other community organizations, ex-offenders can find transportation and housing easier too, said Marks.
“I think the most rewarding part is just seeing the change in them and seeing that confidence boost and them going into a job interview and having the confidence in their skills in the training that they’ve received or the services that they have," she said. "And then the celebration that comes after, where they’re calling the case manager and saying, 'I did it, I went into the interview, I did my elevator speech and I had exactly what the employer was looking for, and I got the job.'”
The U.S. Venture Open will be on August 11th. This year’s guest of honor will be actress Charlize Theron, who founded her own Africa Outreach Program in 2007.
