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It wasn’t the only program for ex-incarcerated people, but with more than 13,000 people leaving Pennsylvania prisons each year, the demand is a lot higher than the supply. Remember the career development program that saved my life? It closed a few months after I graduated. That allowed me to work on voter empowerment, community advocacy and food security, among other issues. I founded West End P.O.W.E.R., dedicated to activism, advocacy, education, equity and unity in communities of color and other underrepresented communities. A few times my boss asked, “Did I see you on the news?” When your boss asks you that, in a skeptical tone, it might be time to change your passion to your profession.Īs a young mother surrounded by women in similar circumstances, I had an opportunity to see how differently Black and white moms are supported. I drifted into activism, sometimes spending my lunch hour on Grant Street protesting against violence, for police accountability and about other causes. I couldn’t keep complaining from the sideline. It turned out the Black community wasn’t voting in near the numbers that it did in presidential years, even though local elections may be even more important to our everyday lives. It was like a party.īut a year later, with only local officials and judges on the ballot, I showed up at a nearly empty polling place. When I showed up at the polls for the first time, the line was around the corner. Luckily, I did my research, and found out they were wrong. The seed of Colorful Backgrounds was planted by that career development course, but watered by Barack Obama.Īs Obama’s 2008 campaign picked up steam, somebody told me that I couldn’t vote, because of my record. POISE, though, allowed me to learn nonprofit management while starting to think big. Truthfully, I would’ve taken a job at McDonald’s at that point.

I thought: “Oh my God, I’m not getting this job! Look at this place.” But after three interviews, POISE President and CEO Mark Lewis said, “You just need a chance.” I remember walking into their offices at Two Gateway Center. The POISE Foundation invited me to an interview. That career development course saved my life, and stuck with me when I found myself, much later, in a position to help others.Īfter working up a resume, going through mock interviews, learning when to send a thank-you card, figuring out what to do with my napkin at a business lunch and countless other lessons, I started submitting applications. I told her I needed help finding a job, so she sent me to a career development course. I was lucky to have a case manager who asked me what I needed. Broadhead’s disappearance was one more reason to start fresh. But when I got out of state custody, Broadhead was gone - demolished, like so many public housing communities in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Growing up, we had everything: rec centers, track and field facilities, families that kept an eye on each other. I grew up in Broadhead Manor, a public housing community in Pittsburgh’s Fairywood neighborhood. That’s in part because the world you return to may not be the world you left. For two hours, though, we were together with a few dozen people in the basement of the Pittsburgh Mennonite Church, celebrating the graduations of Terrill and three other men from the Colorful Backgrounds EXPO, a program I launched a few years ago. On that December night, he’d be returning to a halfway house. Terrill, like me, got in trouble with substances. (Photo by Rich Lord/PublicSource) Fast forward to last monthĪ few weeks ago, on a mid-December evening, I handed certificates to three men, including Terrill Weatherspoon.

19, 2023, at the Pittsburgh Mennonite Church in Swissvale. Terri Minor Spencer at the Colorful Backgrounds EXPO (for Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing) graduation event on Tuesday, Dec.

CHURCH POWER POINT MOTION BACKGROUNDS HOW TO

I didn’t even know how to use the new phones. But how do I create a resume - especially with my past? If I get an interview, what do I wear? Perfume, or no? What will the interviewer ask, and how should I answer? But I had no idea how to get myself together.

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