GET INVOLVED
PICK ONE LANE
AND SHOW UP.
Five kinds of people read this site. Find yourself below, take the one step listed, and ignore the rest of the page.
Find your lane
You want to mentor
Read mentorship first — it is written to filter, not to recruit. Then look at your next twelve months honestly. Then get in touch. The first conversation is about schedule and motive.
You can hire
Read for employers. Identify one opening. Contact DEW about the Federal Bonding Program and the Work Opportunity Tax Credit while the role is open, not after. Then get in touch about the candidate side.
You lead or attend a church
Read for churches. Find three people who will commit for twelve months. Pick one thing — a transport rota is the highest value — and start with one man rather than a ministry.
You are a neighbour with a skill
Read volunteer. Take one defined role: a trade taught monthly, interview practice, a standing meal, a driving slot. Small and kept beats large and intermittent.
You are coming home, or someone you love is
Reach out. Before release if possible. Bring what is already in place and what is missing. No fee, no belief requirement, no form to fill out first.
You want to partner
Trades, small businesses, existing reentry and service organizations. Referral running in both directions is worth more than a logo on a page.
What happens after you reach out
- A conversation, not an application. Fifteen to thirty minutes. What you can do, when, and for how long.
- An honest assessment of fit. Sometimes the answer is that the timing is wrong, or that a different role suits you better. That is a normal outcome and not a rejection.
- Boundaries agreed out loud. Confidentiality, money, supervision conditions, what you are not available for. Before anything starts, not after something goes sideways.
- A defined starting commitment. With an end date you agreed to, so continuing is a decision rather than a drift.
- A check-in at month three. Honest on both sides. If it is not working, it gets changed or ended properly rather than fading.
The rest of the material, including the deal calculators and learning resources, lives on the main site.
What you will be asked for
Time on a schedule you can actually keep. Discretion that does not lapse. A willingness to be inconvenienced occasionally without making an event of it. And the ability to hold a boundary — particularly around money — while staying warm.
You may also be asked for something specific and small that does not sound like service work at all. A ride on the third Tuesday. A phone number for your cousin who runs a framing crew. Forty minutes of mock interviews. An honest answer about whether your company would actually look at a candidate with a seven-year-old conviction. Those are the requests that move things.
What will not be asked is that you take on more than you offered. A person who volunteers for one thing and gets quietly recruited into four stops answering, which costs the work more than the extra three were worth. If you said one Tuesday a month, one Tuesday a month is the whole arrangement until you say otherwise.
What you will not be asked for
Money. Not on this page, not in the conversation, not later.
There is no fundraising campaign attached to this work, no giving page, and no claim about tax status, because no such claim has been established. How this is supported over the long run is still being structured. When there is something accurate to say about it, it will be said plainly and it will be verifiable.
Until then, the currency is time, skill and access, and it is genuinely the scarcer resource. An employer who will run one fair-chance opening properly is worth more to this work than a cheque, and a mentor who lasts twelve months is worth more than both.
If you are the one who needs help
The rest of this page is written to people with something to offer. This part is for you.
You do not need to have it together before you reach out. You do not need a plan, an address, a phone that is yours, or a story that sounds hopeful. The first conversation is about what is actually in front of you in the next two weeks — reporting, documents, money, where you sleep — and what order to take them in.
Nobody will ask what you believe. Nobody will ask for money. Nobody will put your name or your face anywhere. And nobody is going to promise you a job, a house or an easy year, because those promises are how people get sold to at the worst possible moment. What is on offer is that the first year does not have to be done alone.
Frequently asked
Questions people actually ask
What is the fastest way to help?
Transport. It is the least interesting item on every volunteer list and the one that most often stands between a man and a shift he could have worked.
Are you asking for money?
No. There is no fundraising ask anywhere in this work and no claim is made about tax status. Long-term support is still being structured; when there is something accurate to say, it will be said plainly.
I have twenty minutes a week. Is that useful?
Yes, if it is the same twenty minutes every week for a year. A fixed standing call is a real role, and it is harder to keep than most people expect.
Can my company partner formally?
Start informally with one opening run properly. Formal partnership language is easy to produce and tells you nothing about whether the work is real.
I need help. What do I actually say?
That you are coming home, or that someone you love is, and roughly when. That is enough to start. Nothing else is required.
Do you work outside South Carolina?
The relationships and the agency knowledge are South Carolina, mostly the Midlands. Anyone elsewhere is better served by 211 and by a local reentry organization, and that referral will be given quickly rather than strung along.
Make your next move
A year from now, what will you be glad you started today?
You don't need another promise that everything will be easy. You need something useful to learn — and a next step you're willing to take.