A Life Saved: Literacy Program
Helps Man Leave Drugs, Violence Behind
High Point Enterprise (North Carolina)
By: Jimmy Tomlin
First published: July 17, 2008
From the time he was 12 years old, Jeffrey Hamilton was always on the wrong path.
It was a path strewn with drugs, alcohol and violence. Caring nothing about his education, he dropped out of high school and struggled with unemployment and homelessness.
"The life I lived was a life of substance abuse and violence," the 23-year-old High Point man admits, "but I don't live that life anymore."
The life Hamilton lives now is a life of promise, thanks in part to his participation in Workplace Essential Skills, a literacy program sponsored by Reading Connections, a nonprofit adult literacy organization in Guilford County.
Reading Connections was highlighted in "The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 50 States: A Report to the Nation," released last month, and Hamilton was recognized as an Honor of Hope Awardee. Hamilton and the organization were selected for the award from all literacy organizations in North Carolina receiving federal workforce development support.
"Jeffrey is a real success story," says Claire Dixon, High Point program coordinator for Reading Connections. "He took the seed of what we started with him and really went after it himself. Now his life is a lot more stable, and he's going in a much more positive direction."
Hamilton found the support he needed at Open Door Ministries, where he enrolled in a six-week substance-abuse recovery program to get himself clean.
"That opened the door for Reading Connections to come into my life," Hamilton recalls.
With the goal of earning his GED, Hamilton took an academic pretest and scored at a seventh-grade level. Only a month later, he tested at a 10th-grade level.
"That really opened my eyes to think that I could do something with my life, stay clean and live for God," Hamilton says. "It gave me courage."
The Workplace Essential Skills program also gave Hamilton the confidence he needed to enter the workforce.
"This is a six-week program that helps people prepare to go back into the workforce or to go into the workforce for the first time," Dixon says. "The instructor does the program two hours a day, four days a week, for men at the shelter who are in the substance-abuse recovery program."
According to Dixon, the program helps participants prepare a professional resume, develop skills for filling out job applications, practice job interviews and work on identifying what kind of career they hope to pursue.
In Hamilton's case, he went on to earn his GED last December, then enrolled in courses at Guilford Technical Community College, where he's studying to become a drug and alcohol counselor. He's scheduled to graduate in 2010.
"My objective is to help save lives -- that's what I live for now," Hamilton says. "I want to go to schools and other places and talk to the younger generation. I've been down roads of darkness and chaos, and I want them to know they don't have to go through what I went through."
Hamilton also has a job with Lanier Parking, which oversees parking services at High Point Regional Health System. He works primarily at the Cancer Center, helping patients in and out of their vehicles and in and out of the building.
He's also no longer homeless. He just moved into a condominium after living in the shelter's transitional housing.
"I think how well Jeffrey is doing shows how much motivation he had," Dixon says. "He came into our program with a lot of potential -- he just needed some support."
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