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A Second Home for Talisha
Since coming home at the beginning of 2022, Talisha has already begun to take advantage of all that The Fortune Society’s Prepare for Release program has to offer. She had previously found Fortune back in 2016 and was grateful that, upon her recent release, she knew just the place to go.
“When I first got out about a month ago,” explained Talisha, “I just came right here because I remembered that I had been here before and I knew they could help me with job training and finding internships.”
Our Prepare for Release program provides skill-building and discharge preparation services to individuals during their incarceration at New York City jails and continues offering reentry support following their release.
Talisha is hoping to land in a maintenance or construction career and will soon begin a paid internship with Fortune in porter maintenance after completing her initial one-week orientation and training workshop. She had previously participated in the three-week internship back in 2016 in maintenance and enjoyed the structure of training coupled with hands-on experience. She is looking forward to learning even more this time around.
Talisha is also a mother of two and has appreciated that the Prepare for Release staff have been accommodating her and her family’s needs.
“I couldn’t even stay on my first day because I had to pick up my son, but they gave me a day to come back and do my orientation. They’ve been flexible with my needs of taking care of them and everything that comes with that,” she said.
Because of their understanding, Talisha also plans to explore what our Family Services program has to offer her and her children as she hopes to remain involved with Fortune.
She has also been glad to see that the Fortune community is just as helpful and committed as they were when she first found the organization:
“Whatever I need help with that they can possibly help me with, they find a way. They help you with things that you don’t even remember that you need help with and give you a summary of the things you need that you might have forgotten while you were away.”
Talisha thinks that part of what makes the Prepare for Release program special is that many of the staff members who she has connected with have justice involvement in their own histories.
“The best thing is that they don’t judge you,” she said. “And a lot of the people who work here can relate because they’ve been down that road, so it’s easier to talk to them.”
More than the tangible support, Talisha has enjoyed becoming part of the Fortune family again and is touched by the kindness and tolerance of Fortune staff, participants and community members. She shares that Fortune “is like a second home. They don’t discriminate against you. They were still friendly and weren’t judging me for coming back to the same program. It was like I never left.”
To read more about Prepare for Release, as well as all of our 14 service areas, head over to our Services That Build Lives page.
