Blue Jacket, Inc.’s 7th annual Second Chances Art Exhibit takes place Friday, Sept. 9 on their South Calhoun Street campus.
Blue Jacket envisions that anyone with a barrier to employment will be restored with hope and provided capacity to obtain and retain employment because of its vast network and resources of support.
The Exhibit shares success stories of Career Academy graduates as told by creatives from the community.
WBOI’s Julia Meek talks with executive director, Tony Hudson, about the organization’s scope, the program’s importance and its impact on the populations it serves.
Event Information:
Blue Jacket’s Second Chances Art Exhibit
2826 South Calhoun Street, Fort Wayne
Friday, Sept. 9
5:30 to 8:30 p.m. $25.00 Admission
For tickets and more information visit the Blue Jacket website.
Julia Meek: Tony Hudson, welcome.
Tony Hudson: Thank you.
Julia Meek: Now your organization has been providing opportunities for the undereducated and undertrained population for nearly 20 years by now. Who does this include?
Tony Hudson: Well, it includes any adult that lacks the hope that someone's going to give them an opportunity at their place of employment, individuals with disabilities, intellectual and physical, people who have been in trouble with the law, someone who hasn't worked in 15 years, it spans the gamut. Anyone who has a barrier, self disclosed, is welcome at Blue Jacket.
Julia Meek: And with that population, what are the most basic goals? Okay, we want them to succeed; goal-wise, where do you begin to focus?
Tony Hudson: So I love how our board of directors and staff, we have trekked in the same direction for 17 years, and that is to get employment, whether it be transitional or a long term career, get and keep employment. That is our goal, let's get them into a job relatively quickly, and then get them working towards a career so that they can retain the job getting and keeping employment, period.
Julia Meek: This is done within the structure of your academy, capital A, Academy. How does that work? The procedure?
Tony Hudson: Thank you for asking. So anyone who self discloses that barrier, they enter into our front door, they say, "We want to enroll in this two week training."
It's based on getting and keeping employment really, we just segmented into two different bases of soft skills. So upon graduation of the Blue Jacket Academy, they are then put through a process of either job placement, or we have transitional placement through any of our enterprises in house, so the development could continue under the guise of our employment.
So at our clothing store, at our cleaning services, at the Fantasy of Lights, all of those opportunities are for the individuals who say, "Hey, I need to refine these skills that you taught us on how to get and keep employment." It's basic life skills, communication skills, learning how to apply for a job online, building resumes, thank you letters, interviewing; the basics to pre-employment training.
But also we dive a lot deeper in being a great employee, a good coworker, a good subordinate, a good boss, what does that look like? We also take the risk on hiring them in house, if they're not ready for community based employment.
Julia Meek: How is that working for you? The in-house hiring certainly has a practicality getting the programs launched and the jobs actually done for the community. What kind of a solidarity does that start building from the first second somebody's turned on to a position with one of those?
Tony Hudson: It is certainly not an easy task to carry out a social enterprise in the nonprofit sector. We acknowledge that we're providing goods or services to the free market while we're trying to employ and change this person's life. And so we have a double bottom line. If we're not generating revenue, we have no process to be able to help this person. But if we have no person, we're not generating revenue. And so we want to make sure that we're developing people transitionally, 36 to 90 days.
We have cleaning services, we've had an incredible relationship with the Embassy Theatre for I think, seven or eight years now. And we've expanded those cleaning services to other nonprofits that are willing to work with individuals who are, if you think about it, they're a little rough around the edges, they're not ready for the world of work.
So we are mitigating life circumstances while on the job. And so those nonprofits work really well with us, they're like, "Hey, they're not going to have an angel with a halo descending into our office space and mopping our floor. This person is not going to be perfect, they're raw, they're new to the world of work. And so we're willing to work with Blue Jacket on that."
Our rates, of course, are a lot less expensive. That's just our cleaning service. And then we have this incredible clothing store with beautiful merchandise that is donated to us, business professional wear. You walk in there, and you hear the stories of the sales associates who have pulled themselves out of the margins and now they're serving you, either as you are donating clothes, or you're shopping, and then you get to find out their name and then their story. And then it just becomes so much more impactful.
We unfortunately have customers who say the Blue Jacket Clothing Company is Fort Wayne's best kept secret, because they don't want to tell anyone (chuckles) about all the great deals they're getting and the great customer service they're getting. So we're trying to change that through some advertising.
But with that said, it's interesting, it's difficult. And I will tell you, we have such an incredible board of directors at Blue Jacket that they are willing to say and they've said it for 9 years now, believe it or not this month, this very month, Julia, is the very first one in nine years that we've ever done better than break even.
We've lost money at that Blue Jacket Clothing Company every month, but they realize is so closely aligned to our mission to provide free clothes to our students to attend our training and to hire the people that are going through our program transitionally, that if we lose money, we shrug our shoulders, okay, well, if it wasn't that bad of a loss, we got to keep it because it's so closely connected to what we do.
Julia Meek: All the way around, you're giving every part of the community something very, very special. How does that feel?
Tony Hudson: Humbling, and frankly, I'm just walking out my call that God's descended upon me. I tried to fight it a number of times and tried to walk away. And he keeps saying, Nope, you gotta go back. And I love it. I'm grateful for it. And I don't deserve this job.
Julia Meek: Not often does one get such tangible, maybe punch in the face proof, that one is on the right track. Obviously, you're blessed to have that, Tony.
And thinking about your physical space, literally, you cohabitate with NeighborLink, which is its own wonderful organization. How does that benefit the both of you to have that collaboration?
Tony Hudson: It's really wonderful for Blue Jacket clients to go out on a NeighborLink job and serve one of our neighbors in need.
Julia Meek: Which is their whole point.
Tony Hudson: Yeah. Which is what Fort Wayne NeighborLink does. We partner so well together because there's this incredible synergy of living together. We have space, they take it. They have the photo taking studios and tools, we borrow them. But then we dispatch our clients on these NeighborLink projects, which are incredible, because dispatching Blue Jacket clients on an actual project, and by the way, Julia, part of the Blue Jacket Academy process, we can put someone through a training in a classroom environment and many times we're assessing that they're a good student.
But can we really assess that they're a good worker? That they can validate on their resume, it states that they are a great communicator, they follow well, or lead well. We can only do that when we have projects of people giving back to the community. So we dispatch our students to partnering projects around the city like at the YWCA, and I think we even did one here at WBOI. But we also had a number of NeighborLink Fort Wayne projects as well. It has been such a blessing to be able to learn and grow from my friend and executive director Eric wood at NeighborLink.
And likewise, their employees have become very good friends with our employees; we fellowship together, we have fun together, we kind of drive each other nuts sometimes. (chuckles) I think it's because our side of the building is a lot louder than NeighborLink's. So I feel sorry for them sometimes.
Julia Meek: It sounds like you both should feel very, very happy for this wonderful relationship just to know the impact and difference that you can make neighborhood by neighborhood with the neighbor connection with the Blue Jacket connection.
And another noteworthy feature over there at Blue Jacket, Tony is your particular penchant to embrace the artcentric--personally as well as through and for your population. What drives that passion in you?
Tony Hudson: You're setting me up Julia. (laughs) I have fallen in love with fine art. And I did back in 1994 when I was taking a blow off 3D class in my undergrad and my art professor walked up to me, punched me in the shoulder and said, "Hey, guess what? You're no longer a psych major, you are now a fine art major." And the very next day I became a fine art major and I had been impacted by what fine art can do and telling story.
Our story of Blue Jacket is incredible, from how we started, about our namesake, but more importantly, the stories of redemption and trials and tribulations and successes of our clients are best told through those incredible academic and articulate artists that we possess here in Fort Wayne. I'm blown away by the artists that step up and produce a body of work for Blue Jacket on behalf of Blue Jacket and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a moment.
But we also have a residual--our hallways are lined and our curated with two dimensional artwork everywhere, there's sculptures everywhere in our building, and I'm so honored that the staff and the board and our cohabitants with NeighborLink Fort Wayne understand the importance of beauty and aesthetic because that beauty of our space pulls out the beauty of our clients, their inner beauty, the beauty of the neighborhood, the 07, South Central Fort Wayne, Williams-Woodland and Fairfield Neighborhood Association.
We're in awe of the very eclectic people that live around us. But we're an awe of the eclectic people who patronize our building and serve those that patronize our services.
Julia Meek: How do you think it has benefited, well everyone there of course, but especially the grads themselves, to have that kind of energy, synergy and output happening all around them, for them and about them?
Tony Hudson: Well, I think it's really awesome. When a client will walk down the hall we have kind of like a hallway of graduate successes, like just regular photographs. And they'll point up and like, Hey, I know that person or hey, I know that person from way back when but then they'll go into another room that has a large painting of someone.
There's the artist statement, the depiction of that story, and they start reading the story and they look at the artwork, how color and composition is now impacting the story itself. And they say, "Oh my golly, that's my story. And I can someday be able to tell my story like this? I'm going to be heard indefinitely because these are going to be on the walls or someone's going to buy it put it in their house or in their business."
It's awesome because then I think people are excited to know that they will eventually be heard and seen.
Julia Meek: In a beautiful spotlight too. Yes. Now a word on the namesake, Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket. What is it about the man that speaks to your whole being and purpose over there?
Tony Hudson: When we were naming the organization many years ago, we were trying to avoid kind of the cliché, nonprofit acronym. And I most likely need to back the story up to my undergrad years. My art professor also taught an art history class, which was the rhythm of Native American art and design in culture and spirituality.
So when I took that class, I was blown away and he had artists who were attending this art history class that were world renowned, Julia, in fact one of those artists I just saw at the Met in New York just a couple months ago, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. She impacted me, they impacted me and so I fell in love with culture and design and spirituality of the Native American culture, especially then coming back to Fort Wayne and figuring out what was our history because we know a little bit about the Miami history locally, Chief Little Turtle was substantial, Chief Richardville, but no one knew about the Shawnee or the Huron or Erie or Iroquois.
And when I learned that there was an influential Shawnee, that led many to decisive battle by the name of Blue Jacket. And we thought, Oh, my golly, well, that's a compelling name. The more I learned about it, the more I realized that he was taking up arms to not only defend his home territory, but to fight on behalf of the less privileged and those that were going to be losing their homeland, their sovereign territory.
He was at one point even captured by Daniel Boone because he was so influential, but he and Chief Little Turtle worked in tandem and led the greatest defeats against the newly formed United States Army in defense of their sovereign land. So his story is huge. And we were so intrigued.
Julia Meek: And what an amazing answer to everything you stand for. Now, that brings us to the recent addition of Sayaka Ganz's sculpture of the man. It's one of several renderings on display at your facility. How's it feel to have great work by great artists, yourself included, right there for everybody to see and share and vibe on, if you will.
Tony Hudson: I feel like it's divine ordination, that that one of the greatest artists that Fort Wayne can produce was willing and had the time to produce a sculpture that is 13 feet tall on our campus on South Calhoun depicting Chief Bluejacket in a way that has been reviewed and provide a guidance by the actual descendants who some of them are historians in the Shawnee nation on the way he would be standing on top of Father Swan that gave birth to the Shawnee nation.
Julia Meek: And what a great way to, well symbolize everything you're about.
Tony Hudson: Thank you.
Julia Meek: So now on your horizon, you have that 7th annual Second Chances art event. Just what does this add to, well, your whole program by now, graduate program?
Tony Hudson: So this 7th annual Second Chance art exhibit, believe it or not, 50 percent of the people didn't really need a second chance. I guess there's a stigma with second chances that someone blew their first chance. And so there's, there's a connection to those individuals who've been to prison or have been in the criminal justice system though, we serve individuals who've been to prison very, very well.
We have a network of employers that hire people that have been to prison but typically those redemption stories of just falling all the way down to the pits of despair, I've, I became addicted to heroin, or I killed someone driving home from the bar one night or I regret what I did to a loved one or someone I didn't know. And then they found an opportunity to change the life around, they did it and then the artists who we pair our clients stories with, our clients with, tell those stories in their medium of choice and so I just had a fabric artist drop off artwork today, we had a photographer drop off artwork, painters, a sculptor has an 11 foot sculpture that he's going to be dropping off tomorrow.
And those stories are all really impactful because when guests show up typically to a fundraiser for nonprofit, they're expecting to kind of you know hear that one Client Testimonial, Okay, now loosen up the pockets give, you know if you have, give, I have an envelope on the table. We have none of that. Show up when you can, listen to an awesome band, Night to Remember, eat great food from Club Soda, hang out.
It's a $25 ticket I have, for $50 You can take your loved one out on a date and look at the greatest art while rubbing shoulders with the greatest artists in Fort Wayne that are telling the stories of the greatest people in Fort Wayne, who are the Blue Jacket graduates who are doing incredible things.
Julia Meek: Obviously you know how to celebrate, what this represents is just something wonderful and I dare say this gets bigger and better every year.
Tony Hudson: Mmmm. It'll be big! So we have planned for a large tent outside where the band will be. And we will take over the entire South Campus where the sculpture garden, where Sayaka Ganz had her start, she started our sculpture garden of Chief bluejacket, that fenced in property is going to be taken over by hopefully close to 450 to 500 people, for those of us who are a little bit anxious about being around big crowds, we'll have a lot of people outside and the breadth of it.
I think you mentioned that Julia, it is beautiful how this artwork can depict these incredible stories.
Julia Meek: And the energy of the evening and going forward. Now after that, hard act to follow, I know (chuckles) what is next for the place and the space and the whole Blue Jacket program itself carrying out the year?
Tony Hudson: Well, of course, we have our perennial Fantasy of Lights, our winter festival, which is a pretty big undertaking, we employ so many of our clients to set up, tear down those displays as well as work at the gate. That's a huge undertaking. But for this space, Julia, we are working so hard. And I don't know if you know this or not, but we have acquired about an additional acre of vacant land.
Julia Meek: Oh, my goodness!
Tony Hudson: Yeah, over the course of the last 7 years that we know that space will be used to expand into so we're excited.
Julia Meek: How wonderful. Did you ever dream when you kick this whole thing off 17 years ago that you could affect such a change And we'd be sitting here talking about it right now?
Tony Hudson: I think I always dream. And I was hopeful, Julia. And as far as the transformation, I would have never dreamt that I would have been transformed so much, humbled so much, brought to my knees as much as I have. This has certainly been a labor of love.
But I've never dreamt that Blue Jacket would be so incredible, inside the doors. When I walk through those halls and get to meet the incredible people that I would have never imagined ever talking to in my life, an individual with autism who has a fear to talk to men and came out of his shell and one of the greatest employees known to man, and I get to do that I get to be there.
Julia Meek: It must make your heart sing.
Tony Hudson: It does.
Julia Meek: And so Tony, your prevailing drive through all of this was to help people see in themselves that they are worthy. We all have our moments of self doubt. But honestly, what kind of a game changer can it be in this case?
Tony Hudson: I feel like helplessness and hopelessness plagues our world. And so little have we done corporately, Blue Jacket, on educating individuals that their value in this world can be reborn when they begin to work toward a vocation to be productive again, to bring home the bacon for their family, for lack of a better term, individuals who are fulfilling their life's dream, their life aspiration to work, who feel as if they probably weren't valuable enough to work.
And that's demoralizing. It's debilitating. And to some people, they just want to end it--not just their job search, they want to end their pursuit in life. So hopefully the value we provide individuals coming through Blue Jacket will resonate with their family and then their next door neighbor and then their church community or other support groups that they're a part of that here I am. I'm standing tall, I'm valuable. I am seen, I'm appreciated. And then I move forward with making better decisions in my life if I made bad ones.
Julia Meek: Tony Hudson is executive director of Blue Jacket, Inc. Thanks for sharing this remarkable story. Keep up the good work--do carry the gift.
Tony Hudson: And Julia, I want to say thank you. But before that, I just want to tell you how much I love you and how many thousands of people in the Fort Wayne community love you as well. So thank you for letting me sit here and talk to you.
