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“People look at you different if you’re a felon than if you’re a plumber,” says Pat Daniels, the executive director of Constructing Hope, a nonprofit organization that helps parolees prepare for jobs in the construction trades. “We want to build people’s idea of themselves as who they are and who they can be rather than their past.”

From simple beginnings as a prison outreach ministry program in 1995, Constructing Hope has grown to facilitate classes of 25 students every nine weeks. The program operates on the premise that helping former inmates become job-ready will help prevent them from reoffending.

“We have very strict discipline,” Daniels said. “Classes start at 6:30 (a.m.), and they’re only allowed to miss or be late twice.”

The students attend the classes for free. In addition to learning the skills they’ll need to move into apprenticeship programs, they get help with job searches and receive boots, rain gear and other basic equipment they’ll need once they step onto a real job site. They also are taught life skills, such as learning how to budget money and how to save for periods when they might not be working.

“These are life skills that many of these people didn’t have an opportunity to learn growing up,” Daniels said. “Most come from single-parent households and didn’t have the role models that would have otherwise taught them the benefits of investing in themselves, their trade and their family.”

Some people in the Constructing Hope program go on to boot camps for masonry or carpentry, and earn certifications and licensing that help them get in front of prospective employers.

Graduates have a three-year relationship with Constructing Hope that helps keep them on track. The success rate is solid enough to be a model; only 5 percent go back to prison, Daniels said. She attributes the low recidivism rate to the students’ realizations that they’re receiving a rare opportunity to learn a trade and earn a good wage with benefits.

“And I think part of it is gratitude,” Daniels said. “Almost every day I have someone telling me how thankful they are that we do this.”