Jarris Charley says he did not believe in jobs when he grew up between the districts of Roxbury and Dorchester of Boston.
The people he knew who had legitimate jobs, including his mother, were not very successful. Everyone in his community has experienced a paid check and rent. Drug traffickers were those who had money.
“So I was invested in the streets: drugs, firearms, flights. This is exactly what I was taken at a young age, “he says.
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More than words is a bookstore, but which sells more than selling goods of $ 3.8 million per year. It serves young people who suffer from roaming or legal challenges and gives them a place where they belong.
He found himself in detention for minors at the age of 15 and in prison for qualified flight at 23 years.
Towards the end of a five -year prison sentence, a second chance arrived. A former manager of a job training program called more than words visited and asked him: “Jarris, why don’t you come back?”
More than words is a bookstore, but which does much more than selling bestsellers. The program serves young people aged 16 to 24 who face the highest obstacles to the construction of stable lives. Participants face homelessness, are in the family investment system, are outside the school or are involved in the legal system. This gives them professional skills, but graduates like Mr. Charley say that the feeling of belonging and acceptance – that they count – is the most precious thing they derive from the program.
“I like to say that we are in important business,” explains the founder Jodi Rosenbaum.
More than the support of words goes beyond vocational training. There is a paid “ramp” of six to 12 weeks during which the program helps everything, housing and food costs to ensure that participants have appropriate work clothes. Young development officials provide support in a range of fields, including future employment, housing, transport, financial planning and navigation in the legal system. After obtaining the diploma, young people can access the career services and to fill funding for tuition fees, rent and day care so that they can continue their studies and their training.
“None of this works if everything is not dragging together, right?” As a professional training program does not mean anything if you don’t know where you sleep at night or if you have a court the next day, and you don’t have people who help you plan and understand this, “explains Rosenbaum.
More than words have increased significantly during its two decades of existence. It started with a 150 square foot office space where young people sold books given online. Today, he operates three windows in the Boston region. It served around 318 young people last year, who sorted around 4.5 million pounds and earned more than $ 3.8 million in net income.
According to organizational data. In general, around 60% of young people with foster family and 66% of homeless students living in massachusetts graduated in four years.
“Many people think they don’t have a lot to them or that they don’t have much potential,” said Charley. “We tell them about life.”
This was the case for him.
For three years, he has supervised young people more than words. He works in career services, helping young people in the region who stumbled him the most: obtaining this first good job after having graduated from the program.
Melanie Stetson Freeman / Staff
“He was the first white man in whom I trusted it”
Ms. Rosenbaum founded more than words in 2004. She had worked as a teacher of public schools and for the child protection system, and released with government systems.
She saw the same young people appear in court for being mistreated later being accused of delinquency. It didn’t make much sense to her.
“All these young people who have literally been considered by the state as victims of abuse and negligence, needing state protection – and they were literally accelerated in the judicial system,” she said.
Ms. Rosenbaum found that the process of selling an online book had a therapeutic value. He has clear steps leading to a positive result: picking up the book from which it was given, discover how it is, pack the book, ship it, then look at the money enter.
“It was so anchored and organized for them in their life otherwise chaotic,” she says.
Young people are involved in all aspects of the company, the work of the register, the design of the interior, the construction of financial models. Wall painting on more than Boston’s words is the work of an old participant.
More than the words than Boston, where Mr. Charley works, is located in a street right next to the Interstate 93 in a post -industry part of South Boston. The dust and the exhaust fill the air outside the store, located in an old factory building, a sunny afternoon in May. Inside, it’s tidy and spacious. At the front, the wooden tables transport rattan bags and socks with giraffes and penguins. All goods are made by companies that deal with social problems as part of their mission.
Melanie Stetson Freeman / Staff
Mr. Charley began to build shelves in the store in 2012.
He had attended Lexington Minuteman high school. He says there were places limited to vocational high school for people from his part of the city.
Mr. Charley says that he is grateful for experience, but that he had the impression of being appreciated that for his athletic prowess. When people welcomed him in the corridors, he felt: “Do you say” What’s new? ” For me because I am the quarter. in Jarris. “”
“Don’t you think that a black person sees him?” He adds.
He left school towards the end of his second year after an event involving his cousin, he said. Arrest and detention for minors followed. Then he found his way to more than words.
“He was the first white man in whom I trust,” explains Mr. Charley about one of his managers. He always asked when he did not include part of Mr. Charley’s experience – instead of simply gushing advice.
“How are you going to tell me how to face my best friend who gets fired in the head if you didn’t have a best friend who was shot in the head,” he said, his vacillating voice, then sharp. “Don’t tell me how to face it.”
One of Mr. Charley’s objectives is to help his mentories understand their behavior and, in the end, to find out how to stop doing things that cause them trouble.
“A feeling of belonging”
At the time when Chris Anderson joined more than words, around 2005, he worked directly with Ms. Rosenbaum. He was in a group house in Watertown when he met her for the first time.
“Jodi is just walked at once and we all sit in the living room and she got up in a way and said:” Does anyone want a job? “” He said.
He found “a feeling of belonging” while helping Ms. Rosenbaum to start her business. The participants were stubborn, had trouble in school and did not do what they were supposed to do. “Anyway, she just continued to try to realign you to access this path,” he said.
Melanie Stetson Freeman / Staff
He first met the state in kindergarten, when he threw milk on his teacher’s face. An officer recommended what was called chin or children who need services. Then, the Department of Children and Families of Massachusetts accused its mother of negligence, he said.
In college and high school, Mr. Anderson says he fought, caused police officers, constantly jumped from lessons, brought knives to school, even set fire to the hair of his classmates.
He finally ended up living in residential facilities and, later, group houses.
Although the recognition of certain social workers has been useful, although overloaded, the state systems with which they were involved felt “transactional”, he says. He had some therapists through the ministry of children and families, but his short stay with each of them prevented the experience of feeling of value. “Here is another for you. “Sorry, I’m leaving. “Here is another for you. And that there, like, ruin, ”he says.
No one stayed for a long time. Until Ms. Rosenbaum. Mr. Anderson, now in his forties, still calls him to get advice on his relationship with his own children.
“How do you feel today?”
Near the entrance to the back-room where young people sort books in large bins, posters with goals line the top of a wall near the entrance.
“What’s new?” Mr. Charley warmly said to a young person.
“Why are you looking [at me]? “She asks, laughing.
“Because you smile at me. I just see what’s going on with you, ”he says, corresponding to his tone. “How do you feel today?”
Mr. Charley still lives where he grew up, in Grove Hall, which he says that all those who find a good job leaves.
He stayed.
