Region’s nonprofits boost job growth by creating their own
It was one of those August days where you sweat just standing still — a day when living in a tent in the woods can kill a man, especially one with 3 pints of vodka in his system.
Greg Johnson was 3 pints in and counting.
He managed to stumble from his camp in western Orange County to a nearby road, where he collapsed on a sidewalk and was taken to a hospital.
But the remarkable thing is not that Johnson survived. It’s that three years later he is sober, climbing out of debt, going to college and holding a full-time job through a homeless ministry that believes in the redemptive power of work.
“I just kept plugging away, plugging away,” said Johnson, now 57, as he put a coat of paint on his latest project at Matthew’s Hope Chest Creations, a custom cabinetry and woodworking shop run by the ministry. “I got into housing. I got my computer for school. I got a car. … I got my life back.”
Though unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2000, Matthew’s Hope is one of a handful of Central Florida nonprofits that operate
their own job programs to increase the odds of success for those who are willing and able to work.
“Originally, the idea was just for me to see their work ethic. Will they show up?” said Scott Billue, the charity’s founder and CEO. “But then they become part of creating something [out of what] was just a piece of wood … a usable, functional piece of art or furniture. And you can see that sense of pride.”
The program has yet to turn a profit for Matthew’s Hope, which had to rent a warehouse and buy tools, but it’s close. It not only refinishes old wooden furniture; it makes hand-built new merchandise using oldschool techniques. The shop has created tables for cafés and restaurants, kitchen and bathroom cabinetry for private homes, bookcases, decorative artwork, artisan doors, consoles, dressers and storage trunks. There’s even a wine bar being made out of an antique organ.
The workers — up to 15 at a time — may take orders, measure, sand, assemble, use power tools, drive the delivery truck or clean up. They earn five to 15 points an hour, which can be traded through Matthew’s Hope for everything from rent to college tuition, computers and cars. The ministry also will open a bank account for clients. Johnson was able to earn enough to have his broken teeth fixed.
And though few may go on to pursue a career in carpentry, all gain work experience they can put on a resume.
In this sector, the goal is not so much for the organization to make money as it is to help launch participants back into the workforce. The best-known example is Goodwill Industries of Central Florida, where 28 retail stores generate millions in revenue to help fuel other job-training programs for low-income clients.
Most operations are far more modest.
Five years ago at Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, the nonprofit
“If you don’t stick with the person, all you do is graduate them with a certificate — and they’re still on the street. We want more than that for our people. We want them to have a life with purpose.” Scott Billue, Matthew’s Hope founder and CEO
created a 16-week culinary training program for people who were struggling to feed themselves. A third of the students had been homeless.
While they’re training, the students get a chance to work for Second Harvest’s two profitable ventures: Catering For Good, a fullservice catering business run by an award-winning chef; and Meals For Good, a highvolume meal preparation service for child-care centers, after-school programs, group homes, and private and charter schools.
“We believe our training program fills a niche — it’s incredibly user-friendly and also provides education on life skills,” said Second Harvest CEO Dave Krepcho. “You know, how do you make a household budget? How do you write a resume? How do you work as part of a team in the real-world environment of that industry?”
The program also has two social workers on staff who help students navigate roadblocks during the course and afterward. To date, all 241 graduates are working.
At Longwood-based Feeding Children Everywhere, a global anti-hunger program, CEO Dave Green has taken a more unorthodox approach to job creation — by teaching clients to run their own businesses.
This spring the charity created a 12-week pilot program called “Start and Grow a Small Business” for people who had asked for help with food. Only 12 signed up, 10 attended the first class, and six made it to the end. But five of those are up and running with paying customers.
“Most of the businesses are service-oriented because those tend to have very low start-up costs,” Green said.
One man carved out a new venture testing home construction for hurricane durability. BeeBee Ferguson of Oviedo, the 57-year-old proprietor of Busy Bee’s Unique Cleaning Service, relaunched a business that was faltering.
“I was ready to give up,” she said. “But they taught me what I needed to reinvent my business and reignite myself. Taking the class just put a zeal back in me.”
Her cleaning service is now on more solid footing — and Green is about to offer a self-paced online course to attract students from across the country.
“We learned a lot from that first run,” he said. “Getting case managers was one of the big lessons. We found that if we didn’t reach out to people during the process, they can get discouraged and drop out. Nobody wants to feel alone, and they’re already dealing with poverty and food insecurity that can leave them isolated.”
At Matthew’s Hope, Billue said he learned long ago that changing a life isn’t a drive-by process.
He knows more than Greg Johnson’s name. He knows about the auto repair shop Johnson used to run and the marriage he used to have and the grief that caused him to seek solace from a bottle of vodka. He knows about the many attempts at sobriety before Johnson finally emerged from the woods ready to change.
“If you don’t stick with the person, all you do is graduate them with a certificate — and they’re still on the street,” Billue said. “We want more than that for our people. We want them to have a life with purpose.”