Recently the Peer Success Program sponsored a three part series of seminars to teach the women in our unit, C4, how to 1) Start Your Own Business, 2) Keep Your Business and 3) Social Media Marketing. I thought the timeliness of the seminars couldn’t have dovetailed better with events for the future because our leader, Celeste Blair, is planning an ARC Tank event after the first of the year. And the knowledge gained from these seminars will help anyone interested in opening their own business or non-profit organization which is the purpose behind the ARC Tank event.
The first seminar was thoroughly researched by a former business owner who had lost her business upon coming to prison. She realized, after losing the business, that she’d made a lot of mistakes and the time away gave her ample opportunity to learn how to start her new better upon release. She opened the seminar talking plainly about her own experiences and said that was her motivation for having the class in the first place: to teach other women so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes in their own desire to provide for themselves/their family and run their own businesses. I was impressed by the number of women in the audience who’d already had experience with opening/running their own business. It definitely served to reinforce her point – that women are not afraid to run their own businesses and are capable bosses of companies that may start out small but can grow quite quickly.
There was a good bit of technical information such as a list of vocabulary words and descriptions of all the different business structures, but we all came to learn something so it was warmly received. And the presenter of the seminars had started out practicing her delivery with me for several days before the presentation to ensure all went well. The extra practice paid off because everyone was very impressed.
The second seminar, held on Thur., Dec 26, talked mostly about finances, budgeting, book keeping, taxes, etc. Once again there was a lot of technical verbiage we needed to learn, but she delivered the info at a nice pace so we could take notes and still ask questions. I was very pleased that all the mentors for C4 were in attendance for the second meeting: Farren Ricketts, Leila Reyes, Waralee Wanless, Leslie Kingrasaphone, Gina Mestre and Sidney Marker. Wanless currently has her own business back in Thailand; Kingrassaphone led several family businesses prior to incarceration; and Ricketts ran her own tax business before prison, so many were familiar with some of the things the teacher spoke about and were able to add their own insight.
A wonderful response to the second seminar was immediately after the seminar I was approached by a woman who, prior to prison, had been unsheltered by a traditional “home”; i.e. an apartment or house, but did have a job building lean-to structures for other homeless people as well as cleaning out abandoned homes. She’d been a victim of violence and had also lost her beloved pet at the hands of the same abuser. She started telling me that she wanted to open a business in where people could come to visit emotional support dogs as victims of domestic violence and the people could receive the love only a dog can give as a form of therapy. I suggested that she consider making her business mobile – to reduce her overhead costs as well as making her the deliverer of the treatment to the people in need vs. the people in need locating her or organizing transportation there – and also consider making it a non-profit organization so she could proceed without taxes while also partnering with government agencies like law enforcement or child protective services. The suggestion was well received and she has already reconnected with me to discuss her mission statement and what other steps she can take to make her dreams a reality. This is the true purpose for the Peer Success Program: to give women something positive to focus on while they’re in prison, making a few suggestions, a slight course correction and guidance on how to make those dreams come true. It is always a joy for me to watch people stumble upon their own light and realize they can shine as bright as others.
The third seminar will be held in 2-3 weeks and it is the one I am most interested in since I have no experience with social media. I look forward to all the knowledge gained almost as much as seeing the women come together to learn or do something great. And who knows who might be inspired after all this? I know for a fact that there are already several future participants for next year’s ARC Tank!
