A week ahead of an expo that is meant to help the formerly incarcerated-turned-entrepreneurs build relationships with local business owners, a job fair geared only for those who have gone through the criminal justice system will take place.
“This is for everyone who has gone through the system, from DUI to more serious charges,” Troy Rogers, the public safety coordinator for the city of Chattanooga, said in a telephone interview with the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Monday.
This week’s event, A New Life: Career Prep & Job Fair, will be held over two days, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday, at the American Job Center, Eastgate Town Center, 5600 East Brainerd Road, Suite A5. It precedes the Returning Talent Entrepreneurial Expo, which is scheduled 6-8 p.m. July 28 at the Family Justice Center on Uptain Road.
The first day of A New Life will consist of organizers preparing participants for interviews by providing vouchers for goodwill clothing, haircuts for those who need them and counseling from speakers and attorneys from the Chattanooga Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division. The second day, those seeking employment will be able to speak to 23 local company representatives offering them a chance of employment, despite their criminal records.
Since the first job fair geared toward felons around six years ago, men and women who have gone through the criminal justice system have found jobs and even started their own businesses. One of them was Theodore Sanders, who after attending a job fair in 2018 and meeting Rogers, was able to get a job doing construction work.