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How a Special Partnership Helped Two Felons Find New Beginnings
 Sure, Cavegeo Strickland and Jacquese Duckett were happy to get out of prison. There was only one problem: they couldn’t find jobs.
“I had felonies on my record,” Cavegeo explains. “That makes it awfully hard to find a job and a place to stay.”
“It’s hard to turn your life around when you’re a felon,” Jacquese adds. “After all, with any type of criminal record, your employer looks back ten years.”
That’s why Cavegeo and Jacquese were so glad to turn to Chattanooga Endeavors, an agency in Chattanooga whose mission is to assist former offenders in their transition from prison to free society by helping them find jobs. Often, Endeavors also helps its clients find housing, in the process turning to the Samaritan Center for assistance with furniture and household items.
“When I went to jail, I lost everything,” explains Cavegeo. “I had everything in storage when I went to prison, and when I wasn’t able to pay the bill, they just took it all away. I had nothing, just as if I had been in a house fire.”
Fortunately, the Samaritan Center and Endeavors recognized his need, granting him a Samaritan Center voucher so that he could pick out some much-needed household furnishings in a shop that would treat him with respect.
“They were very nice Christian people at the Samaritan Center,” he remembers. “Now that I’m back on my feet I still like to go back there to see what I can find, even without the voucher.”
Jacquese had a similar experience, receiving a voucher for a bed, a dresser, and some household items. When asked how long it would have taken her to acquire these same items on her own, she was at a loss for words.
“A long time,” she murmurs.
Thanks to organizations that work hand-in-hand like the Samaritan Center and Chattanooga Endeavors, people like Jacquese and Cavegeo are now able to truly leave their pasts behind.
“My past is what was stopping me from getting a job and getting settled back into an apartment,” Cavegeo explains, “but not anymore. Now I feel like I’m truly a part of society again.”
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