Confections with Convictions may look like a typical sweets shop. What makes it unique is its mission- to hire teens with criminal backgrounds and help them overcome barriers to employment. In the five years it’s been open, the shop has made some major strides and changed lives.
A counselor with young people in the criminal justice system, Dale Anderson saw that they needed opportunities more than they needed counseling:
“A young person who has a felony record has a really hard time getting work. Particularly in the last several years when the economy has been so poor in Michigan. So I wanted to start a business where I could hire young people with felony records to give them an opportunity.”
Five years later, Anderson has employed around 20 young people and says that the selection process is remarkably random:
“The first young people that started working for me were referred by Youth Opportunities Unlimited. They’re a program of Kalamazoo Education Regional Service Agency here in town and they placed a couple of young people here with me, who were the first who started here. I get some referrals from the court system since I still know probation officers and others in the court. I got young people coming here and actually people from people coming here all the time. Once the word is out that I hire people with records, it’s definitely not hard to find people who are needing work.”
Quinton Mitchell has a few convictions in his past and started working at the shop four years ago. Now 22-years-old, Mitchell says his time there has kept him out of trouble:
“Before I started working here it was eat or get eaten pretty much. It was a different lifestyle, totally the opposite of now pretty much; I had nothing, on the street. So, I did a whole turn around almost, I’ve still got a couple kinks to work out but it’s better than what it was.”
Fellow employee Dalton Hanners says that he hopes teens don’t give up the search for opportunities:
“It’s just, you think there’s nothing and you know I looked one time and I ended from school, getting my GED and they popped me over here. You just kind of got to try, you’ve really got to try and look for yourself.”
Efforts for equal opportunity employment in Kalamazoo go beyond Anderson and his staff. Michigan United, a statewide organization of community activists, has created the Fair Chances for All campaign. Volunteer Matt Stone says they are working towards the elimination of questions about criminal convictions on job applications:
“The Fair Chances for All is a policy that we would like to see passed in the City of Kalamazoo. It’s a policy where any of the companies in the city that receive tax abatements from the city, we’re asking that they be required to ban the box, which means get rid of the question have you been convicted of a felony on the application. As well as hold off on any background check until after a contingent offer has been made to give people a chance to get in front of an interviewer and tell their story and maybe show who they are today rather than what their past shows.”
Fair Chances for All lead organizer Christine Lewis says that Anderson’s Confections with Convictions is a model for the community:
“I think it’s an incredible, not just business model but community model, like how we can all more deeply invest in one another and in one another’s gifts. Dale’s so good about like teaching and mentoring his staff and letting his staff just grow and build and become incredible human beings that they are. And there’s so many other places in society where we don’t have that.”
Anderson says that he’s not only seen support from the people who buy his chocolate, but through an award his business won from Catalyst University at Southwest Michigan First:
“It was quite rewarding. One of the young men who work here was able to go up and get that prize. I think it was very special for him to have 2,000 people supporting him.”
