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Haley House – changing lives through food

Jeremy Thompson gained a new career through the Transitional Employment Program

Kassmin Williams
Haley House – changing lives through food
Jeremy Thomas (Photo: Jared Leeds)

With one foot moving toward a career in real estate and banking and the other stuck in the drug-plagued neighborhood he grew up in, Jeremy Thompson of Boston landed in prison at 30 years old.

Thompson called the experience “an eye opener.”

“Prison is not good for anybody, but I think it gave me a lot of clarity on my life, on what I should be doing and how I should I be going about doing it,” Thompson said. “I would never say prison is a good thing, but I made the best of the worst situation.”

When he was released in 2011, Thompson learned about the Transitional Employment Program at Haley House, a non-profit that uses food as a vehicle to better lives, and decided to apply.

Haley House includes a bakery café with wholesale and catering services, a soup kitchen and food pantry.

During his interview process, it became apparent that Thompson would be better suited in a different role at Haley House. Thompson skipped the job-training program and landed a position as catering coordinator.

Eventually, he moved on from that role and has since has held a variety of titles at Haley House including catering manager and assistant manager.

In 2013, Thompson landed his most desired role as leader of the Transitional Employment Program when former program head Doug Cordon transitioned to a new role.

“Working for a nonprofit you do many things. You have a title, but you do just about everything that’s under the umbrella,” Thompson said. “But I hadn’t had the chance to work intimately with the Transitional Employment Program, which I was very fond of since the interview stages, so I was excited to take on the role.”

Haley’ House started its Transitional Employment Program in 1996 as a bakery training program serving ex-offenders in a broad variety transitions. In 2006, Cardon had a new vision to transform the focus on job-readiness for those who were incarcerated and transitioning back into the community.

“We were in a public health crisis where there were no opportunities for people leaving prison,” Haley House executive director Bing Broderick said. “The impact on the community is huge and we felt like we could make a deeper impact working with one group than we could with folks in diverse circumstances, and that has proven to be true.”

Since 2010, the program has worked with 30 individuals.

Participants are recruited in groups of four and work in the café’s wholesale department where they’re trained on cookie production, which includes mixing, baking and packaging chocolate chip cookies to be delivered to college campuses.

As part of the production process, which takes place on Monday nights, participants take part in conversation based on the “word of the day.” Examples of words discussed are “respect,” “trust” and “responsibility.”

Participants share their thoughts and ideas on what the day’s word meant to them prior to entering prison and what the word means after being released from prison.

“We sit around and have these types of conversations while we work, which helps to get things out on the forefront,” Thompson said. “I believe when things are taken off your chest and put into the world and you’re receiving this good energy, good things are going to happen. [The exercise] is just to get them started talking.”

Participants also partake in mental health and wellness workshops, a basic computer-training program and one-on-one goal-setting meetings.

Individuals who have completed the three- to six-month program — based on individual progress — have gone on to pursue a culinary arts education, work in the culinary arts field or pursue other careers.

One individual is working in fitness as a personal trainer and another works with at-risk youth, Thompson said.

Although Thompson did not go through the actual job-training program himself, his experience with Haley House and taking steps to climb the ladder at the non-profit has been life-changing for him.

“I see the world differently,” Thompson said. “Before, I looked at the world as a hurt young man who thought the world owed me a lot just because of all the turmoil and strife that I’ve been through in life and I have come into the realization that, no matter what you do, nothing is owed to you. Everything you do, you have to earn and even sometimes when you earn it, you still don’t get it.”