From Incarceration to Gainful Employment with SVdP

One rainy day in February of 2013, Rusty knocked on the SVdP Council office main entrance door wanting to apply for work. A senior staff member reviewed his application and decided to give him an opportunity to work for St. Vincent de Paul. He was going to be a painter and all-purpose maintenance employee.

Rusty had been incarcerated in Washington prisons eight different times for burglary and fraud between 1997 and 2010. When he came to SVdP, he was ready for work and that he had made a complete transformation from a life of crime and was excited about a “new opportunity.”

His desire for change can be traced to his time in prison in solitary confinement, where he says he “talked with God and committed himself to wanting a simple and normal life.”  He has been working at SVdP on a part time basis since that rainy day last winter. He has held as many as three jobs at one time, keeping up on his bills and being self-sufficient. His new lifestyle now revolves around his work, his three kids and two grandchildren, and his motorcycle. He has been a model employee. Rusty says that “St. Vincent de Paul has been good to me. It is a down to earth organization. I am thankful for their help.”