Help comes in many forms, and it doesn't have to be financial. Carmen Hutson said one of the Chattanooga area community's greatest needs is more employers and ones who are willing to accept people with criminal records, especially felons.
"When they leave prison and they come back into the community, it's difficult for them to get back on their feet, so sometimes they go back into crime because nobody will give them an opportunity to succeed," said Hutson, director of stability and community programming at the United Way of Greater Chattanooga.
Eddie Simms was one of those people. Simms is a former felon but wanted a better life for himself after completing his time, Hutson said. He was able to find that through the Neediest Cases Fund and his Building Stable Lives coach, Karen Nichols.
Nichols said Simms is a hard and talented worker.
After he finally secured a job, she was helping him reintegrate back into the working world. That's when she learned Simms was in serious danger of backsliding. Although he had a car, Simms wasn't legally driving due to having outstanding fines and being without car insurance.
"It's survival. I've got to drive to get to my job," she said. "Neediest Cases helped him with that. He was able to pay it, get legal and get insurance to be able to drive."
Adolph Ochs, former publisher of the New York Times and the Chattanooga Times, began the Neediest Cases Fund in 1914, and now it helps people with one-time donations to get them back on track. The United Way of Greater Chattanooga manages the fund.
Simms has since graduated from the program but still visits Nichols at her office at the Bethlehem Center in Alton Park from time to time. She said he's been named employee of the month at his job, is looking at buying a house and helping his nephew turn his life around, too.
"He's actually learned quite a bit," she said. "He loved the program, but what I tell him is that I just put the avenues out there, you did the work."
Contact Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.
At The Bethlehem Center, Karen Nichols is a Building Stable Lives coach who was instrumental in helping Eddie Simms get back on track. / Staff photo by Tim Barber