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Sam Schaeffer, Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Employment Opportunities, reflects on CEO’s 30-year legacy of advancing economic opportunity for people returning from incarceration and outlines a bold roadmap for impact on the path to Opportunity 2030.

Today, Jesse spends his days supporting others through reentry and mental health challenges, leading programs, and helping build pathways for people with lived experience to succeed. He is a Program Manager and HR Talent Acquisition Specialist at Project Return Peer Support Network and a full time student at Cal State LA.

Every time Courtney, director of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) in Cincinnati, shuts her computer and leaves work after a day spent leading her team, building relationships, and helping formerly incarcerated individuals find work and gain economic stability, she’s reminded of the value of a fair chance.

When Regnarian “Reggie” came home, nothing about reentry was easy. He had returned not to his hometown of Brooklyn, but to Philadelphia, a city where he had no family, no friends, and, at first, no safe place to land. “The halfway house I was in had open drug use, theft, fights every day,” he told me. “I knew I had to advocate for myself if I wanted to survive.”

Growing up between Colorado and California, Corey was one of 13 siblings raised by a single father. Life wasn’t easy, but his childhood was filled with lessons about resilience and responsibility. “My dad taught me how to be a father and I’ll always be grateful for that,” Corey says. “My dad showed me the right things to do through his actions and he was always there.”

Tracy wakes up every morning and goes to work as the assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Every time she walks through the doors, she remembers just how much work she and her coworkers put into getting it up and running.

Change is never easy. For many of the 600,000 justice-impacted Americans who leave jail and prison every year, the mountain of past mistakes, broken dreams, and lost opportunities can feel impossible to scale; each step up is a reminder of our failures until we reach the top.

Sinead was five years old when she sat in the back of a police car for the first time. A neighbor had called the cops because her parents were arguing in the front yard again, and they wanted to know if the little girl was alright. It was the first of many moments that would define Sinead’s early life – growing up in San Diego with limited means.

When a government shutdown abruptly halted SNAP benefits, the impact was immediate. At the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), our phones rang off the hook. Staff across our sites worked urgently to help participants navigate what the cutoff would mean for their families.

When Jesse talks about home, his story begins in Detroit, in neighborhoods where dreams were fragile and survival was essential. “I grew up mostly on the east side, around Highland Park. I moved through foster care and sometimes stayed with family, but I was always moving from place to place,” he shares. “It was a poor urban community, but that’s where I’m from.”

Terry, who has 17 years working at CEO, explains that while justice-impacted individuals are eligible to apply for a card, they are routinely denied because of their criminal records. “By the time it is determined that their charge or felony does not fall within the automatically disqualifying category, months have passed by, and the opportunity is gone.”

The last time Terry worked on a TV show set, he says he blew the director away by drawing on his life experiences to lend depth and authenticity to his character. "I try to put everything I've experienced in life onto the screen, and directors have told me they really feel that," he said. He always dreamed of being an entertainer. Now that dream is finally coming true. It took courage, discipline, recovery, and the support of a community that believed in him to make it a reality.