A Vision for Establishing Free Vocational Schools Across the Country

My name is Charles Wang. And I am writing to you about a successful program and service that my friend and I have created: we built a non-profit, vocational, training center to teach practical skills to the homeless people that are so prevalent in our community. Many of these people have just been released from the prison. They cannot find jobs and quickly find themselves without dignity, purpose, and means to survive. It is my unfortunate experience to see many of these young men (and yes, women) – full of potentials – quickly back in prison again.

Thus it became a vision for my friend and me in 2005 to build a training school in the most impoverished community of Atlanta, close to a prison. Through our training, we wanted to give our enrolled students a sense of value, dignity, good morals, and most importantly, a set of practical skills for employment and survival.

On Feb 2005, after consulting with many friends, local policy-makers, and businessmen and receiving positive feedbacks and invest, my best friend – sharing my same vision as I – Mr. Antonio Hezekiah Roberts and I started putting down our own money as well as our investor’s money into building this school. The local politicians of our community helped us a great deal as they have initially promised, whether it’s in finances and preferential policies.

The state spends about $20,000 to $41,000 per year to lock up a healthy, productive individual, whereas that same individual could be paying that much tax if he or she was successful and functional and a contributing member of the society. And this is not to mention his or her quality-of-life, finding his or her calling and passion in life, and the service, spirit, and energy he or she may contribute to others of his or her own community.

To cut a long story short, we finished building and opened this school at the end of that year, despite of many nuanced problems and conflicts in opinions. And immediately, we enrolled more than 170 eager students within 3 months.

As we continued to receive funding and successfully training students who would most likely otherwise go down a deep spiral of hopeless and act out in desperation that would put them back in jail, we wish to share our small success story of our small vocational school with anyone who would like to listen. We want to inspire other people – powerful, influential, and wealthy people, who can outdo our little effort here on any raining day. Please invest more in the people around you who are in need. Because they are worth it!

These are just a simple example of some of the classes we offer to our students:
– Auto Repair
– Janitorial Work
– Computers
– Construction
– Dry Wall Construction
– Wall Painting
– Customer Service
– Building Maintenance
– The way of Love (Mandatory)
– Self Value
– Character Building (Mandatory)

…

Sincerely Yours,
Charles Wang