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HopeWorks student Parnell Williams does push-ups after disrupting a class at Midtown Church of Christ. HopeWorks has a strong discipline policy, including two mandatory drug tests during the 13-week job course.

Mark Lewis and Marques Curry walked into John Anderson’s office, bringing little more than troubled pasts and lots of hope.

Then a light came on. Anderson, the owner of Ellendale Electric Company, gave both men work.

Photo by Mark Weber
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HopeWorks student Rico Roach (center) listens intently to instructor Antonio Owen (right) during a class at Midtown Church of Christ. The 13-week program has had more than 600 graduates since it was established in 1988.

Taking a chance on employing two young men with felony drug convictions on their records, Anderson said, turned him into a believer in the redemptive power of an honest day’s work.

“Whatever you say, the odds are stacked against these guys,” Anderson said. “But what’ll stop most people in their tracks won’t stop these guys.”

Lewis, 29, and Curry, 30, both graduated from HopeWorks, a private nonprofit program that helps transform adults from street hustlers to skilled, employable citizens over the course of 13 weeks.

The program includes a process of mapping out career interests and a six-week internship with a private company, which for some leads to permanent employment.

Anderson said he received a call from a HopeWorks staffer five years ago inviting him to provide an internship for Lewis.

“I guess they caught me at the right moment and I said I’ll do it,” Anderson said. “The next morning Mark comes in and we sit and talk and I liked him.”

Anderson knows what it is like to be given a chance. Ellendale Electric celebrated its 30th anniversary this year with about 75 employees, a campus of buildings on U.S. 70 north of Bartlett, and a fleet of trucks.

But in the beginning, Anderson was on his own asking customers for the chance to work, too.

“It was one guy starting with a shoestring budget,” Anderson said. “One guy let me do a house for him, and then he uses you again. Next thing you know, he’s telling someone about you.”

That’s what Anderson and Ron Wade, executive director of HopeWorks, hope will happen with more HopeWorks grads. Although the program is open to anyone over age 18, many of its students have criminal records and stories of instant rejection from potential employers.

Lewis and Curry both got into drug dealing in their teens, which they said was the norm in their neighborhoods. Lewis’s mother had major surgery and couldn’t work for a year in which the utilities were constantly being turned on and off.

Lewis felt he had to do something to make money, so he sold drugs. Then he watched as his best friend was gunned down in front of him in deal gone bad. In prison, he read about HopeWorks in The Commercial Appeal.

“I remembered that when I got out,” Lewis said. “That was the beginning of my process.”

Similarly, Curry gave up a warehouse job after more than a year of being taunted by friends who made more money selling drugs in one afternoon than Curry did in two weeks.

“Once you fall into that hole, people try to keep you down, but you don’t know what that person has been through or if they’re trying,” Curry said.

Both applied for jobs on their own after serving time and were met with automatic rejections. Lewis was actually accepted by a temp agency, but was turned down at the front door on his first scheduled day of work.

But now both are electricians, a career they identified while at HopeWorks. Lewis took up the trade through on-the-job training. Curry is in his third and final year of apprenticeship.

“I’m so proud of them I can’t see straight,” Anderson said. And he meant it, too. With the economy disrupting new residential construction, Anderson has had to let a number of his electricians go in the past couple of years. He kept Lewis and Curry.

Now the company is slowly shifting away from residential work altogether.

HopeWorks was established in 1988, the joint project of benevolence programs at Sycamore View Church of Christ and Holmes Road Church of Christ. The groups meet in the basement of Midtown Church of Christ on Union Avenue.

Students learn job readiness skills, basic computer and Internet skills, take advantage of psychological and spiritual counseling, have a one-day-a- week Bible class, and share lunch each day with “faith encouragers” — mentors who help students stay focused on completing the program.

About 40 students divided into two classes go through the 13-week program, at a cost to HopeWorks of $3,000 per student. The group is funded solely by private donations.

There are random drug tests, strict attendance requirements, and rigid curricula and of course, some don’t make it. But for the ones who do, life is a very different experience.

“When I get off from work and I’m tired and walking slow, I see the guys on the corner (and I know) I’m going to go in the house and rest and be at ease,” Lewis said.

Ellendale Electric

Address: 7722 U.S. 70

Phone: (901) 382-0045

Online: ellendale-electric.com

HopeWorks

Address: 1930 Union

Phone: (901) 272-3700

Online: whyhopeworks.org

© 2010 Memphis Commercial Appeal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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