If you don\u2019t know, beelove was born out of the North Lawndale Employment Network, a non-profit organization that was founded on a simple idea – if you give people jobs, you not only change their individual lives, but you can transform a community.<\/p>\n
You see, North Lawndale, the community we work in on the west side of Chicago, has a problem. After years of systemic oppression, tensions in the neighborhood boiled over in 1968 during the MLK and DNC riots, and business fled. Without proper government support, the neighborhood has been struggling ever since. On top of many other issues, North Lawndale is a grocery desert and a bank desert – meaning fast food restaurants and predatory financial establishments are often resident\u2019s only choice.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a job desert. Without any industry, it\u2019s impossible for people to find legal jobs, and so they have to turn to illegal means of survival. Mix that with a police force that has a historically bad relationship with its constituents, and you get high levels of incarceration, which decreases the chance of employment even further.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a seemingly unbreakable cycle. But there is hope. If a formerly incarcerated individual goes through NLEN\u2019s \u201cU-Turn Permitted\u201d job readiness program, and then spends three months working at Sweet Beginnings, their likelihood of returning to prison after three years is reduced from 55%, the average in Illinois, to only 4%. That\u2019s not a typo!<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we do the work we do. We\u2019ve learned a lot about first, second, and third chances. When you invest in people that haven\u2019t been given much of an opportunity before, they are so much more likely to make a better life for themselves and their communities.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve helped become change agents in our neighborhood. Like pollen to honey, North Lawndale is transforming into something more than a forgotten neighborhood on the West side of Chicago every day.<\/p>\n
Every time you shop at beelove, you\u2019re not only getting a great product, you\u2019re helping to give someone a chance to turn their life around, and make a U-Turn. You\u2019re helping reduce recidivism in Illinois, and giving us the opportunity to further develop and expand our model so we can help other communities implement the same model, and combat recidivism and mass incarceration at the neighborhood level.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re shopping with impact. You\u2019re helping change lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our Neighborhood If you don\u2019t know, beelove was born out of the North Lawndale Employment Network, a non-profit organization that was founded on a simple idea – if you give people jobs, you not only change their individual lives, but you can transform a community. You see, North Lawndale, the community we work in on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n