2022-100-Faces-Book - Flipbook - Page 39
Lamar
Dad. Graduate. Reformer.
From the age of 23 to 31, Lamar spent all but one
year incarcerated.
people are like a family now. If something goes on, I
call these guys before I call my family now.”
“I was moved from county to county, to different
prisons. I kept getting in trouble. It just tore me up,
and I lost my sense of vision. I didn’t know where I
was going. I was lost and I felt like I wasn’t getting
back out.”
He said he used to tell his friends in the program about
this pain inside, that he’d be driving down the street
and would cry uncontrollably. A friend in the program
told him that once he started accomplishing his goals,
that pain would start to go away.
He eventually made parole, but his relationship with
his kids was already too damaged. They wouldn’t
speak to him.
And it did. He began to rekindle his relationship with
his kids.
“That woke me up as a man.”
On parole, he started to apply for fast food jobs, then
a friend put him in touch with 4:13 Strong, a United
Way funded partner. They operate a months-long
residential program that supports men after they have
been incarcerated.
“I get excited every time I talk about it. 4:13 Strong
saved my life,” he says.
4:13 Strong’s program equipped him with the skills
he needed to change his life—forever. He started
the program with a week of tryouts, or physical and
mental conditioning. Then he moved on to the 40-day
challenge, where he spent each day in the classroom
working on financial literacy, work readiness and
construction skills training classes. He visited job
sites, earned three construction-industry certifications
and did service projects on the weekends. After the
40 days, he felt equipped with the right job skills and
certifications and found full-time employment. With
a steady paycheck and a new mindset, he was able
to work toward buying a car with cash and saving an
emergency fund.
“The little things that matter, which most people don’t
think about: They helped me get my license, insurance.
I got a great job. I got eight raises in one year. Those
“I missed so much time when they were little—and you
can’t get that time back. The only thing you can do is
just move forward and do better as a father, as a man.
I usually get them every other weekend and I try to
get them during the week, pick them up, take them to
school. Just try to spend more time with them.”
He went back to church and worked on building a
relationship with his mom. He said he even went
to people in his life who he had wronged and
made amends.
“I feel good about myself inside, outside. I changed my
whole image. I changed the way I talk; I changed the
way I walk. And, you know, it just feels good inside.”
He says that couldn’t have happened without the
support and the friendships he made.
“As a young man, you’re eventually going to have to
change your way of thinking. If you put yourself around
positive people, you start to think different; you start
to talk different; you start to walk different,” he said.
“4:13 Strong is important because a lot of programs
don’t work. This one does. It’s not a program where
you just go in and after six months you don’t hear from
these guys again. I graduated in 2016, and I’m still best
friends with these guys. It’s bigger than just
a program.”
4:13 Strong
