(link to the original Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly article)
By Rick Farrant
[email protected]
Isaac Edwards, dressed in a snappy donated suit and tie, sat in a small conference room at Blue Jacket Inc. and spoke openly and articulately about a life of dumb decisions.
The 32-year-old father of two said he began walking down a path of self-destruction when he held up a Fort Wayne gas station at the age of 18. Over the course of the next 14 years, he twice landed in prison again — both times on charges of being a felon in possession of a handgun.
His missteps led to a total of seven years in prison and a life seemingly wasted — until he entered a job preparation program at Blue Jacket after his release from Westville Correctional Facility on Feb. 4.
“The skills they taught me,” said the aspiring artist, “are life-changing. I’m going to take them with me for life. I’m shooting for the stars, and I don’t think anything can stop me.”
Blue Jacket, a Fort Wayne nonprofit now in its eighth year, provides ex-offenders — and to a lesser extent other difficult-to-employ individuals — with the soft and hard skills necessary to seek jobs and be successfully employed.
The organization recently unveiled an 8,000-square-foot space at its facility at 2826 Calhoun St. that has been dubbed the Blue Jacket Clothing Co. It is a place where program participants can get free donated clothing — including suits — and the general public can pick up slightly used clothing at bargain-basement prices.
Blue Jacket also oversees a subsidiary, Opportunity Staffing, that helps place people in jobs who have graduated from Blue Jacket’s intensive four-week, 60-hour job prep program.
More than 2,000 people have enrolled in the program since 2005.
Since 2009 — the first year for which complete statistics are available — more than 70 percent of enrollees have graduated. Nearly 60 percent of people who start Blue Jacket’s program are employed within three months.
Tony Hudson, founder and executive director of Blue Jacket and former director of programs at Allen County Community Corrections, said the job placement figure is a solid one considering general economic challenges and a pool of candidates with checkered pasts.
Moreover, he said, the recidivism rate of program participants — people who wind up back in prison for committing a new crime or a technical violation of a previous court order — is just 18 percent. That, he said, compares with an overall rate of about 40 percent for Indiana ex-offenders.
One of the reasons for the program’s success, Hudson said, is that the eight-employee organization and its numerous community partners focus not only on things like résumé writing, interview techniques, proper dress, workplace codes of conduct and work ethic, but also on helping people change the way they approach life.
For prospective employers, Hudson said, the program is essentially a vetting tool that offers solid employee candidates who can continue to use Blue Jacket’s services, provided the graduates do not re-offend. For ex-offenders, the program offers hope for a better future. For the community, Blue Jacket’s work, which comes as Fort Wayne grapples with a spate of homicides, helps trade violence for virtuous productivity.
“We have impacted people who are from the streets,” Hudson said. “We have impacted people who used to carry pistols or deal drugs or be users of drugs.
“We as humans need to be productive. Whether it’s in a factory, a newspaper or somewhere. And if we give the ability for someone to meet that core connection to humanity then, yes, we have impacted how much violence there could have been. This year, last year, and since we started.”
Hudson acknowledged that Blue Jacket is not a magic bullet.
“From what I’ve read — and usually I refer to the Bible — there’s always been sin,” Hudson said. “And since we originally were made perfect and are no longer perfect, there will always be sin. Which means there will always be crime. There will always be temptation.
“What we can do as a community in loving each other and supporting each other is to provide the tools and opportunities so that when (people) are ready to make a better choice, someone’s there for them.”
That choice — and a demonstrated commitment to change — is critical to the process, Hudson said.
Edwards agreed: “It all shows in your actions. Talk is cheap. You can say all the right things, but people are (judging) what they see. That’s what it comes down to.”
For Edwards, the turning point came when he took a step back during his latest incarceration and considered the circumstances of both younger and older inmates. One group represented where he had come from; the other where he might be headed.
“That was the example of looking in the mirror where it actually touched me,” he said. “Where I could understand.
“People don’t change until enough is enough. Until you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. So that’s pretty much how it was with me. I looked in the mirror and I was sick and tired.”
Before his release from prison, he participated in what he characterized as a demanding cognitive program designed to help shape disciplined life skills. He followed that up with Blue Jacket and, on the day the organization celebrated its expanded space, he joined 14 others in graduating from the program.
Sitting in the Blue Jacket conference room, Edwards talked about the unbending requirements of the organization, including that participants be on time and that they dress appropriately with the assistance of the clothing store.
But what the self-described one-time loner really gained from the program was the self-worth and confidence that he could walk a different path.
“When I first started this, I was more quiet,” Edwards said. “I was more feel-you-out more. Get to know more about you, know everything about you, and less about me. But now I’m like: I want you to know more about me. I want to network. I want people to look at me in a different way. I want you to say, ‘Hey, that’s a professional guy.’”
Initially, he said, he’ll look for a factory job — something he’s familiar with. But he’d like to go back to college (he said he’s completed two semesters) and eventually find a job in computer animation — something he said he’s particularly good at.
He’s ready, he said, to be a success story.
“You’re only going to go as far as you allow yourself to,” he said. “You can be someone who restricts yourself or you can make it limitless.”
A well-suited name
Although it may sound like it, the name Blue Jacket has no connection to the clothes provided by the organization.
It was taken from the name of a Shawnee war chief who was an ally of Miami Chief Little Turtle and a foe of General Anthony Wayne.
Executive Director Tony Hudson said he has a great interest in Native American culture and heritage and when he came upon a reference to Chief Blue Jacket, “I thought: That’s kind of a catchy name. Blue Jacket. That’s where it all started.”