Award recipient Hope Inspired Ministries helps unemployed get their lives back on track

Quanaisa May sat in the classroom along with about 10 other students. May is dedicated to getting a job and getting her life back on track.

“I came to better myself," May said.

She started the program at Hope Inspired Ministries for her little girl.

Hope Inspired Ministries has been helping Montgomery people learn how to get and keep their jobs for the past 10 years, Executive Director John Bowman said. Bowman started working with the program when he became a volunteer mentor while he was still a part of the police force at the Montgomery Police Department. He retired after 26 years with the department, ending his time there Jan. 1, 2021, and beginning his new career with Hope Inspired Ministries on Jan. 2, 2020.

Because of the group's hard work, Hope Inspired Ministries was awarded a $15,000 grant from the A Community Thrives program and was among 32 nonprofit recipients across the nation who have received a fundraising grant.

At Hope Inspired Ministries, people can sign up to take a nine-week course that is designed to help them in the workplace. There are five locations throughout the state.

Six weeks of the course are classroom-based. For the last three weeks, students intern at a company.

Many of the people who take the class are homeless or have been previously incarcerated. Some have mental health issues. Hope Inspired Ministries helps them deal with all of it.

Bowman likes to say that Hope Inspired Ministries is a workforce-development nonprofit with an emphasis on social work.

“It used to be we want you to obtain a job and keep a job," Bowman said. Now the stakes are higher. "We want them to excel."

The people who work at Hope Inspired Ministries try to match their students with jobs where they can shine.

Bowman encourages everyone to get involved with the nonprofit.

“I tell people all the time, I want to get them involved," Bowman said.

The nonprofit provides clothes for interviews and also conducts mock interviews to give the students practice, showing them what their interviews might look like.

Whether it is getting their students' IDs or making appointments for them with mental health providers, the people who work at Hope Inspired Ministries are there for their students every step of the way, even if it means they have to repeat the class.

Sometimes the ministry even hires its students. There are five people on staff who at one time went through the program.

The classes are Monday through Friday. Hope Inspired Ministries provides lunch for each class.

The next class will begin in January. The last class graduated Thursday at a cap-and-gown ceremony.

“Once they graduate they’re in our family," Bowman said.

Alex Gladden is the public safety reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at agladden@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Ministry inspires unemployed to get jobs