By Gregory Lewis
Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
BROWARD, Fla. — Quinton Washington sports dreadlocks, a “187" tattoo over his right eye, a mouth full of gold teeth and a police record.
The number is police code for homicide. He’s never killed anyone. It was part of his rapper persona to give him the hardened image that fits hip-hop culture.
Very few employers would have given him a chance; the Opportunity Industrialization Centers of Broward County and American Ambulance Co. did just that.
“It’s the best investment we’ve ever made,” said Charles Maymon, vice president of American Ambulance, which hired Washington as an ambulance driver last year. Since then he has become a certified paramedic.
Washington, 25, is a graduate of a program aimed at polishing up nonviolent ex-convicts for a second chance at becoming productive taxpayers.
He had been in jail one month, charged with drug possession, when an OIC counselor got him to try the program. Now, Washington works up to 80 hours a week driving an ambulance in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. When he’s not working, he’s spending time with his three children, who live with him and his girlfriend in Miami.
“Quinton’s appearance makes his story so amazing,” said Newton Sanon, executive director of OIC Broward County. “He’s a testament that education, training and a good attitude typically will outweigh everything.”
The OIC was founded by the late Rev. Leon Sullivan in the 1960s in Philadelphia. Sullivan grew tired of encountering young black men and women with criminal records who were unable to find jobs. The training centers, 60 in the United States, and 46 international sites, give participants job skills and confidence.
The OIC came to Broward County in the 1970s but went out of business in the 1980s. Revived in 2001, the Broward center is the only active one in South Florida.
“We help people to have hope,” Sanon said. “We give them a job skill they own and build self-esteem. But you know what, it’s the No. 1 deterrent to crime, more than anything else.”
Since Sanon took over in 2001, more than 4,500 ex-offenders have come through the Broward OIC. More than 80 percent of them have found jobs, according to the organization’s records. About 8 percent of the program’s graduates have gone back to jail or prison or committed another crime.
In contrast, one-third of Florida ex-cons return to prison within a year, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Henry Lewis, in his 40s, who was in the OIC last year, learned entrepreneurial skills. He is operating his own mobile auto detailing business with contracts at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.
Lewis has done so well, he’s hired two people from the OIC.
“It’s double and triple the economic effects,” said Sanon. “Here you have a participant becoming a productive, tax-paying businessman, coming back to give others an opportunity.”
New paramedic Washington has done so well, American Ambulance donated three scholarships to OIC and recently hired another trainee from the program, Sanon said.
Washington oversees ambulance driver and paramedic trainees at the company and other drivers respect his professionalism, according to Mary Albin, his trainer there. The company’s vice president insisted that Washington train his son.
“I never thought I could be an important person like that,” Washington said. “I couldn’t have done it without OIC and American Ambulance. They are like my family.”
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