When I first stepped foot into our family bakery at the age of 7, I immediately became accustomed to a culture filled with a diverse range of people. My aunt started the bakery more than 20 years ago and made the decision to hire reentrants (individuals who have been previously incarcerated). Even at a young age, I worked alongside reentrants, thinning dough, rolling lady locks, and baking cookies. Today, I run our family business from the hiring to the baking. Our reentrants have become more than just employees; they’ve become our family.

When I started OutsideConnection, our family business was one of the only businesses in Pittsburgh that would hire reentrants. It was hard for them to find jobs, and they were continually turned away from positions because of their criminal records. Although this improved our own hiring process, it was a disappointment for reentrants who had different skill sets: construction, IT, communications, and more.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, nationwide employment dropped. We found ourselves struggling to find new employees as the business grew. At the same time, though, businesses became more open to hiring reentrants.

Taking advantage of this, I started OutsideConnection, a free second-chance job platform that has helped our business and local businesses alike employ reentrants while also supporting our local communities.

Mass incarceration is one of the largest problems in America today. In fact, the U.S. incarceration rates are 5 times higher than most countries. Although this problem is entirely relevant on the macro level, it’s also something important to me personally.

Many of our employees in the bakery grew up without support, whether that be financially or in the home. Many were born into generational poverty, and some grew up as orphans. Incarceration isn’t caused by bad people. Rather, it's a result of a bad system.

I really fell in love with the issue in 3 ways: first, from my interaction with our employees in the family bakery. There was nothing like the experience I had growing up: being able to talk to someone who’s been in prison face to face, to befriend them and help them.

As I got more involved, I started a research paper associated with the Oxford University Global Priorities Institute, where I explored this issue even further. (Awaiting publication). I really loved the experience.

Lastly, I realized that growing up in a family situation with an abusive father and a single mother put me at risk for incarceration as well. Abuse, in fact, is the number 1 cause of incarceration nationwide. I learned about an issue that was incredibly important to me, and I was astounded when I learned incarceration usually stems from an abusive household or broken home.

Through researching mass incarceration and speaking to leading professionals, I learned that employment is the best way to reduce mass incarceration. By having a stable job and income, people are more likely to live successfully. Employment also vastly decreases recidivism, the tendency for an individual to re-commit a crime.

Using this information, coupled with my family bakery anecdotes, I started a website with a high-quality backend capable of storing mass amounts of data. Using spreadsheets and web-scraping AI tools, I scanned the web and automatically sorted jobs based on which employers would hire reentrants. Using the Second Chance Business Coalition, I garnered a long list of possible companies.

Using this web automation tool, I put together long spreadsheets of job data, which I uploaded to the backend of the website. The website then displays that formatted data as job listings. Basically, my approach was to recreate LinkedIn or Indeed but with jobs for reentrants. It certainly wasn’t easy, but the site can currently hold 2,000 listings, and we are working on scaling to 10,000.

Our CMS system allows a user to search for a job in any of our 17 states and 41 cities and find a result specific to their interest. We act as a resource for organizations around the country and the Federal government to help reentrants find suitable employment after returning home.

We’ve set up OutsideConnection for success by putting together a network across the country. From calling, emailing, and diligently researching hiring practices, we’ve grown to over 17 states and 31 cities. We’ve made an effort to specifically target cities that are affected by incarceration, like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.

We are a part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s curriculum for reentry called the National Reentry Resource Center, allowing us to educate and help reentrants everywhere in the country.

We’ve also received grant funding from the REFORM Alliance, founded by Meek Mill, JayZ, Pricilla Chan-Zuckerburg, and Robert Kraft, which currently supports ALL of our operations.

Every week, I take time to meet with 2-3 different reentry organizations from around the country to help develop job-placement programs and curricula through the use of our platform.

I love seeing the smiles and excitement on people’s faces when they see the resource for the first time. Their faces light up with the idea of new possibilities and breakthroughs in the reentry process.

We currently use the Second Chance Business Coalition to source our more than 40 employment companies, always ensuring that the companies we list have a Fair-Chance hiring program. Because of this process, we ensure the success of our hiring initiative.

OutsideConnection is more than just a job site. We are a network of people dedicated to helping reentrants. We are currently funded by the REFORM Alliance, founded by Jay Z, Meek Mill, Pricilla Chan-Zuckerburg, and Robert Kraft, and have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice. We are used by the Center for Employment Opportunities, which alone helps 8,000 reentrants find employment annually.

With ACAR (Allegheny County Reentry Coalition), we hosted a reentry job fair that attracted 140+ reentrants from across Pennsylvania. I was able to teach reentrants how to navigate the site. I currently serve as a leader of the ACAR Employment Committee, helping to plan future job fairs.

We have also helped more than 100 reentry organizations across the country develop their own job-placement plans. We’ve provided job access to more than 10,000 reentrants through our partnerships with the largest employers in the world, like Amazon, McDonald's, Chipotle, and more.

The first step to solving mass incarceration is finding meaningful jobs. It’s the #1 action that reduces recidivism. But the next step is harder and requires reentrants to take the initiative themselves. They do their own share of helping to solve this momentous problem. We couldn’t do it without their strong effort and courage to seek a successful lifestyle despite the challenging conditions they’ve lived through.