The Goodwill Aspire program helps soon to be released prisoners find jobs and get mentorship and guidance before their release date and after they're released back into the community.

Those prisoners are helped by the Aspire Team, a group that knows what it's like to be buying bars.

I started my first conviction with the prison in 1995, and during the course of those 18 years in and out, they always have programs for you to take to get good time off your sentence, maybe get out a little earlier.

I early on the parole board, but there's nothing there impacts you and give you the resources when you get out.

So does my program not only goes prerelease, but it goes post-release when they get out with with them for this journey.

The purpose of the Aspire program is ultimately for people that are incarcerated upon release.

They are successful in reintegrating and back into the community, but also just employment, having that sustainable city and being independent and having good employment.

So that's the ultimate goal and that they don't obviously recidivate.

We have six career development facilitators having the justice involvement backgrounds enables the career development facilitators to be relatable just almost instantly.

By me being in the justice system for so long and being right in the very prisons that I'm now entering.

It gave me some life experience that they can see, Hey, this guy is not just coming from something that he read, are going to school, getting a degree.

Someday he'll live.

So my experience, I think, justifies me.

The reentry coordinators at the state, Kentucky Department of Corrections.

They determine who's eligible and the requirements that we have are that they have to be 20 to 90 days from release and they can't have a sex charge and they've got to be returning to the Louisville area or they don't have a home placement.

And one of the reasons about the reasons that we put that in there about no home placement is because the majority of the reentry centers are in Louisville.

We have five enrollments right now for the Aspire reintegration phase, but we had 67 complete the Aspire Workshop, which is inside the prisons.

15 hours is provided inside the prison and we work with the client.

It's a 3 to 5 hour day.

We really go over like reentry barriers.

So we have seven partner prisons and two reentry centers.

We have some other partners.

We have the Legal Aid Society.

So every client that's released will get a legal assessment completed.

We also have three mental health partners that will help them transition and receive mental health services.

So one of them is specific to substance abuse.

The other one is for high risk offenders that have a high risk of recidivate and trauma informed care.

And so we have three mental health partners that are going to be helping them as they transition.

This is a community problem.

If we can help these people from going back and reduce the recidivism it betters, the community, I just think is well overdue, is long overdue, and it gives hope.

The program started in 2023 and is run by a federal grant from the Department of Labor.

It will last until 2026 and then it will be a value added to see how well the program worked.