(calm music) - [Thomas] MaineWorks was one of the things I talked about with my father when I saw him for the last time.

He was very interested to hear what I was doing with this unique company.

He had spent much of his life helping people in Maine, helping causes important to Maine.

We also talked about my late brother and his talent and craft and his intense struggle, and in a way, we were speaking to the bigger need that so many people face, mental health issues, addiction, substance abuse.

I myself climbed out of the bottle years ago and struggled with depression, but for my brother and many others, it was lethal.

Hope comes in different ways.

At MaineWorks, people are getting a second chance, a path toward rebuilding their lives and a way back to the community and redemption through hard work.

As for myself, I found purpose in making films, and I saw an opportunity to shine light on this company that set out to help people help themselves at the desperate crossroads and come warm themselves by the fire of hope.

(calm music) - Frankly, I think everybody here, the fact that you're standing here is stunning.

The fact that you're alive is unbelievable.

The fact that you're carrying the steamer trunk of all the (bleep) you guys have been through is so commendable.

And that guy showed up wearing his prison outfit from Maine State Prison over a year ago and has never missed a day and has 11 children and lived through war-torn South Sudan, as a refugee came to this country.

I mean, that's hard work.

We respect that.

We appreciate the most that you guys don't come in here and bring your stupid drama about what happened along the way.

I never hear war stories at MaineWorks, ever.

Do you, Joanne, ever hear war stories really?

- [Joanne] Not war stories.

I hear stories.

- Yeah, but there's no like, "Hey, I can, you know," it's not the tough-guy program.

Look at the humility.

Look at the quiet humility.

Shane, how are you doing?

- I'm at the Cumberland County Jail right now, pre-release, and you know, I came here, no trust, nobody trusted me.

You know, I didn't trust anybody.

You know, I had no faith in nobody, you know, just not caring, no reason to live, no reason to wanna live.

And well, within a month, I got a job at Pape Chevrolet and ended up getting the keys to that building, you know, so they trusted me there, and you guys put me in that position.

And then I show up here every day knowing that I'm surrounded by people that can trust me.

If they ask me to do something, they only have to say it once, and they know they can walk off, and it will get done.

And you know, my anger ain't as bad.

I lost my brother recently.

Normally I'd be going off the wagon, and this circle of MaineWorks, everything's been keeping me together, you know, this meeting right here that we do, something that you can't put a price on it and that self-discipline, self-respect.

- To me, you guys, that is the way forward, is suffering and redemption is the story of all humanity.

Every world religion or world spiritual group identifies with the need for some kind of profound suffering to inform the way forward, agreed?

Suffered enough?

Done with suffering for now?

- Four months.

- Good on suffering?

- 30- - (beep) up enough?

Everybody okay over there with suffering, behind you?

So guys, I wish you well, and have a great weekend, and thank you for being here.

Eric Linquist, thank you for being the firestarter.

You're tireless in your commitment.

- So you found yourself sober and thinking, "What am I going to do now?"

- In rehab, I met these people, and I would've never, ever, ever met these people had I not been in rehab.

So they were from the other side of the tracks, absolutely.

And they were the coolest characters, and we had everything in common.

So I think that's really important, because I had been so upper-crusty and interviewing, you know, at Goldman Sachs.

You only go to the Ivy League schools.

There's no, you're not interfacing with humanity, and I had this incredible draw to all of humanity.

But I started volunteering at this street drug and alcohol clinic as part of my recovery, probably in 2000 and like 2, and I went in there, and I was like, there's a palpable essence of like life happening down there in the bowels of that building.

And I folded laundry and folded towels and folded stuff and did this morning reflection once a week, and I was like, "I really love this.

I'm getting drawn to this work somehow."

And then I started volunteering with the Cumberland County Jail.

I went in, and I noticed that these young guys sitting around in the circle were all really eager.

They at least identified as needing to be in recovery, so they were sitting there, and then I would go around and say, "What's your first and last name?

Where are you from, and where are you working?"

And they would say, you know, Denny's or Burger King or Dunkin' Donuts, and I thought, "You know, if I could find these young, healthy guys a job at a construction site, then they could be like more viscerally busy all day and like toiling the land kind of thing," the Maine ideal of hard work and enterprise, you know, not just flipping burgers.

There's no, you're not going anywhere with that.

And that's how it all started.

That was in 2010.

It was amazing.

The guys were delighted.

They were so excited to get out.

We'd stop and get coffee and listen to Biggie and all that kind of stuff, it was really fun.

Drove around to all the jobsites.

I'd drop them off and pick them up at the end of the day and bring them back to the jail, and the jail loved it, 'cause it was a better outcome because they were happier with what they were doing.

- [Participant] I have no idea how she got it started.

- Right.

- I have no, I don't know how, you got this, you know, like 40-year-old blonde woman pulling up in a minivan to a work site with a bunch of tattooed felons in the back seat, "Hey, I got some guys.

You wanna put 'em to work?"

Like, it really is, it's unfathomable to me that she had the balls to do that.

(calm music) - There's no book that says, "Okay, first thing is go find as many felons and drug addicts as you can and then start a business and only employ them."

I'm heading in to pick up Justin Downey.

Justin actually grew up in a very, very hard part of South Boston.

And we're going to the MaineWorks Circle, which meets every single morning at six o'clock, which I have been doing since 2011 every single morning of the year, weekday mornings.

I think I've missed like a total of 15 days because I was out of town.

Otherwise, this is what I do every morning at 5:38.

- Hi, Margo.

- [Margo] Heated up your seat for ya.

- [Justin] Aw, you're the best.

- [Margo] Wait till you feel that.

(laughs) - Aw, it's nice.

- [Margo] Hi.

- Hi, good morning.

- [Margo] How are you?

- I'm all right.

- [Margo] Good, I like that.

- [Justin] Oh, the tattoo I got, yeah.

- [Margo] Why, that's interesting.

- Before I went to prison, I had a woman's name tattooed there, 'cause I was all sentimental, and I thought if I tattooed her on my body, she was gonna stay with me, but obviously that didn't work out.

So I got this tattoo artist down on Exchange Street to cover it with a raven and a skull.

And in Nordic mythology, the raven's a messenger of death.

That's why I thought it was fitting to cover her with that.

(Margo laughing) I wouldn't have made it.

There's no way I would've made it.

I didn't make it on my own accord.

I made it 'cause people stitched me back together and made me believe in myself.

I didn't believe in myself when I got outta prison.

It's like I (beep) hated myself, hated myself, and I hated people, hated God.

And I just, I was suffering.

I was just suffering every day.

Every day was, I'd wake up, and I'd be like, "How the (beep) am I not gonna kill myself today?"

Seriously, it was that bad.

In ways, like when I first got out of prison this last time, in the middle of the conversation, like I'm having a conversation with you right now, I would start uncontrollably gagging in the middle of conversations and dry heaving and almost, you know, to sometimes to the point of vomiting, but dry heaving, retching, right, 'cause my head would be (beep) spinning so fast, I wouldn't even be able to hear the, literally wouldn't be able to hear the words coming outta your mouth.

My airways would get closed off.

My stomach would tighten up, and my heart would feel like it was gonna (beep) explode all at the same time, and I would just start like retching in the middle of the, people must've thought I was completely outta my mind.

So you have to understand my family dynamics.

I grew up, my grandparents raised me, 'cause my mother was a heroin addict.

She was HIV positive.

She was a prostitute.

She was, you know, she was out on the streets.

She wasn't there.

My father was completely out of the picture, gone, didn't see him pretty much most of my entire childhood.

Once I got to MaineWorks and I seen human kindness like in action is when I started believing that there's people that walk their talk, you know what I mean?

And so I got up to Maine.

They told, I was at the sober house.

They told me I had to go find a job.

I was like, "Where the (beep) am I gonna find a job?

I have a bank robbery conviction.

I have firearms convictions.

I got heroin convictions, cocaine convictions.

I got convictions going back to when I was 16 years old."

You know what I mean?

So where the (beep) am I gonna find a job, right?

Who's gonna hire me?

It's not like I have, you know, crimes that are easy to explain.

I can't walk into a place and be like, "Yeah," and they run my CORI.

It's not a DUI, you know what I mean?

I can't say, "Oh, yeah, I had a bad night," you know what I mean?

I had a (beep) bad couple decades.

So I went down there, and I walked in, and I seen that morning circle, and I knew that I landed somewhere really, really special.

- So it was a pretty turbulent part of my life because it was right after the recession, and my parents had split up.

And so my mom moved into a place on her own and started MaineWorks with the help of her family.

But she really just, you know, pressed out on her own, and she started the company from our dining room table in her apartment.

So I really grew up around the business, and I got involved at a really young age.

- How old were you?

Where were you in school and?

- I was at Falmouth High School in Falmouth, Maine.

And this was kind of the end of like the, I call them like the Toyota Sienna days.

She always used to drive around this baby blue Toyota Sienna that I used to go to soccer practice in, kind of like grew up in the back of.

And around 2011, she'd be bringing me to school sometimes, and she'd also bring people to work.

And so I'd get dropped off at Falmouth High School, and there'd be, you know, again, some like 260-pound tatted-up guys sitting in the car of a parking lot where there'd probably never been a single person, like a single other person that kind of fit that description before.

So the contrast of that was really kind of interesting for me.

And they all, everyone who we worked with has a ton of unique experiences and really cool stories.

- So I had this couple of years where it was just me driving around these guys who had OUIs or habitual offenders, and anybody in jail in Maine is only there because they can't afford to bail out.

I mean, unless they've done something egregious, they just, it becomes a socioeconomic problem.

Jail is always for people who can't afford to, you know, bail out.

- Right, but the employers were open to having these guys- - Totally fine with it.

You would be surprised, 'cause I could talk a big game, how if anything happens, "I'll take the rap.

This is my business.

I'll take care of it."

- [Thomas] And the insurance, that was something- - Yeah, I did all, put those things in place, which is basically just, you need a payroll and an insurance, that's it.

And the insurance is high, but the companies that I would bring them to were all very well run and managed, and they all had their own safety protocol.

So that's the big exposure.

You know, that's the cost of doing business is the exposure to workers' compensation.

And my guys were always working at sites that weren't inherently dangerous.

And I'm really selective about where I send people, which is important.

- These guys, were they ready to work, do that kind of work, manual labor?

I mean- - Definitely.

- And they wanted to do it rather than- - That was the screen.

And if they didn't seem to do well with it within three or four hours, I would just check in at lunchtime, and if the foreman said "He's not cutting it," I would just go pick him up and redirect or bring him back.

And then he could go and work on the grounds crew, you know, and rake and shovel.

- [Thomas] Well, this is sort of amazing.

You just threw yourself into this population of these guys who by any standard could be violent.

- Not in 10 years.

It's amazing.

At that younger age, when I was 35, whatever I was, I felt like I had met all the life milestones.

I had lived large in New York.

I'd had beautiful kids, you know, been raising them.

So I almost felt this fatalism of, "I don't care what happens to me."

I don't, I had no sense of like, "I better be careful."

People would always say that, but I have an incredible confidence in humanity anyway.

- [Show Host] For convicted felons, it can be hard to land a job regardless of how much it pays.

But there's an employment agency in Maine that's focused on putting felons into the workforce.

Get an ex-con a job, the idea goes, and it might keep them from going back to prison.

Tom Porter introduces us to the founder of MaineWorks.

- [Tom] Margo Walsh used to recruit employees for the investment banking industry.

She admits there were a few raised eyebrows when she set up a private employment agency three years ago and began recruiting felons.

- My lead line is not, "Hi, I'm Margo, and I've got a bunch of felons for hire," not at all.

It has to do with, "I have a fantastic product, and that is extremely well qualified, sober workers."

- [Tom] Margo Walsh says perhaps the most important thing about MaineWorks, though, is its success in keeping people out of prison.

- [Margo] So I've had 250 guys working for me in the past three years.

- [Tom] And of those 250, she says only about 20% have been reincarcerated, quite a contrast to national recidivism rates, which indicate that more than half of all offenders are back behind bars within three years of their release.

As for Margo Walsh, this year, she hopes to take the MaineWorks business model and expand it into other states.

- [Margo] And I would like to see MaineWorks replicated to NewHampshireWorks, WyomingWorks, FloridaWorks.

- [Tom] Walsh is motivated partly by her social conscience and belief that everyone deserves a second chance and partly by economics.

Rather than being back in prison or on welfare programs where they cost the state money, these guys are out there working and contributing to the economy.

- [Margo] The point of MaineWorks was to provide employment for people in early recovery from substance use disorder and reentry from jail and prison and to really move on with a purposeful life.

So Maine Recovery Fund was established to provide the tangible assets that people need.

They needed boots, coats, access to healthcare, you name it.

- We're staying in this hotel in Kennebunkport, and I went and got the "New York Times" on Sunday morning, and I thought, "Wow, well, in the business section, there's a person that looks a little bit like Marg.

Wait, here she is," you know, in the section.

And so she got a lot of early press and early accolades, justifiably 'cause the work is so amazing.

But it started to seep in that she was working, you know, doing the work, but also losing money in the for-profit because what she was providing was a very private solution to what is an extremely public problem, and that was a disconnect.

And I knew that we would eventually end up there, and I was just her advisor, I was an early investor.

Myself and Maddy Corson and my sister Maureen, the three of us were the first money in MaineWorks, and we were paid back very quickly.

But what was the part that felt forced in a way were the wraparound services that Margo was providing to all the people that worked with her.

Whether they worked at MaineWorks or not, she helped so many people that never even went out on a jobsite with MaineWorks.

- Right.

- And it's that part that we started looking at more critically, and finally in 2016, we had a donor that would come to Margo all the time and say, "How can I help, what can I do to help?"

And for a nonprofit philanthropy advisor like I am, when someone asks one of my clients, "How can I help?"

it usually means they're interested in investing.

And so it was around that time where I thought, "Okay, let's just start Maine Recovery Fund.

Let's start a nonprofit now.

2016, we have a donor that's stepping up with the first money.

Let's see where this goes, and we'll pull all of the wraparound services off of what MaineWorks does and make that the mission and the work of Maine Recovery Fund."

And so that's what we did in 2017.

We had our 501c3 status in May of that year, and that first year, we raised about $186,000, and now our budget this year is 600,000.

The State of Maine has graciously supported the work we're doing.

Here we have this nascent partnership, and we're using a business model to solve social and environmental issues, but not just relying on nonprofits and government-related services, work forward using a business model, and that's what MaineWorks is, a social enterprise.

- It's unique that there isn't this kind of thing going on in the rest of the state.

There isn't this kind of thing, this kind of paradigm going on in other states as well.

We're proud that you've started this in Maine, and I hope it catches on.

And you know, with Maine having a really dire workforce need right now, jobs are going without being filled.

Every kind of industry, health care industries, construction, hospitality industry, we've got a shortage of every kind of job available.

So it's important that we look at all facets of our society, that we welcome people to Maine, welcome new Mainers, that we welcome people with credentials or people who seek credentials, that we beef up the community college system and the university and the CTEs career technical schools and make sure that everybody who can work and wants to work is working.

And what you're doing fills a niche there, because you're taking a discrete population, mostly people who have been incarcerated or who are incarcerated on work release, closely supervised and making sure they show up, and I think every employer should welcome that.

It fills a need for our society, for our economy, for our state and also fills the need, the societal need for people to get better.

So many people in our jails have substance use disorders, and many of them gone untreated for many, many years.

And I think what you do is important in part because you're not simply placing people in jobs and kind of supervising them and making sure they show up on time, clean and sober, but also the wraparound services, helping find housing.

Without housing, there's no real recovery.

You're helping people get back with their families, get their lives back together.

I think it's important to remember as one former governor, Joe Brennan, used to say, "The best social program is a job."

You gotta start with making somebody feel like their life is fulfilling and fulfilling a need, a social need, and that means working.

That means not sitting on the couch playing video games and doing drugs or whatever.

It means being productive.

When you're productive and you're actually earning a living, you gotta feel better about yourself.

- Absolutely.

- And about your family, and your family feels better about you.

- Opposite of where you're sitting right now, if you remember, which probably wasn't that long ago for most of you guys, you know, is that despairing place with your head in your hands, you know?

Even if you had this outward appearance of having, like, thinking you're having a great time, you're being a total pimp, inside, you're dying because you're lying to everybody, stealing from anyone, misrepresenting yourself constantly and living a lie.

Who can relate to that?

Who can relate to that?

Absolutely, right?

The paradox of MaineWorks has been, "I feel all that grabby me, me, me, take, I want everything I can get and never enough of anything."

And it's like through this circle, it gets turned inside out, right?

So that you're no longer on the take constantly, but you're extending your hand.

Just, you know, I hope for you guys that that feels like you can live that way, because once you stop lying and stealing and cheating, and like I see guys all the time, they're not even used to themselves telling the truth.

They feel like an imposter telling the truth.

How many people here have (beep) their lives through the use of drugs and alcohol?

Well, welcome, you're all here together, and we're happy to see you.

How many people have spent any time in the prison or jail system in any way, shape, or form?

Welcome, so you're no longer freakishly on the outskirts looking in, saying, "I hope they don't know that I'm a felon.

I hope they don't know I just got outta county.

I hope they don't run my name."

So, and with that strength, right, where they're, we're not gonna do that, right?

With the strength of that, you guys, people have walked through this circle and right on to real life.

You should see who's been successful through MaineWorks.

- I've known Margo for years, and she was calling on us to see if we needed somebody.

And for a while, we were a little apprehensive about, you know, using her people, and- - Because they're guys that have issues.

- Yeah, I think just kind of being unfamiliar with it and, exactly, you know, who the workers were, what they could do, what they couldn't do with their limitations, you know, how would they get the work.

- [Thomas] Right.

- You know, some of those things, and then, you know, out of need, we really thought we'd give it a shot and tried it, and we've had, you know, really, you know, great success.

- Yeah, and why is that and then?

- You know, I think in general, she's had some, you know, some really good people, and you know, we found some, you know, very talented carpenters, all, you know, just good people, and we've ended up hiring a number of 'em.

- And you were, were you surprised to see the kind of ratio of success in her group?

- I think so, yeah.

I mean, we've had more success hiring, you know, people from MaineWorks than we have from other temporary employment agencies.

- Do you think much about how the work that you're giving them affects their success and their journey to stay off drugs and alcohol and that kind kind of thing?

I mean, I know it's not like what your focus, but- - No, no, it means a lot to us.

I mean, I think, you know, we can see that a lot of these folks, you know, may have had a criminal record, have had some substance abuse issues, and really what they need is an opportunity.

And if you're willing to give 'em that opportunity, I think they can be success.

And Margo does a very good job of giving us folks that wanna work, and- - What's your impression of Margo?

- I mean, she's quite unusual.

- Yeah, I think she's a remarkable woman.

I think she's got tons of energy, and I think she's committed to these folks.

And I think they see, that and I think they respect her, and, you know, they're willing to, you know, to go to bat for her.

- Arielle Nagy.

I am from New Jersey.

I currently live in Portland now, though.

I never really held a job that I could ever like call a job.

It was make money, get drugs, and that was what my life was literally about.

And then in 2016, I ended up getting arrested and going to federal prison.

- Oh, okay, how long were you in?

- I was in for a year and a half.

I got out April 2018.

That's when my journey like with MaineWorks kind of began.

My parents had both just died.

I knew I was gonna have to take care of myself, and my father always told me get into trades.

And a friend of mine, Jonathan Doyle, worked with MaineWorks, and he gave me a recommendation, told me to go down.

I applied, and I started working within like a day or two after applying.

- At MaineWorks, where did they put you at, what kind of jobsite?

- I went to a couple little jobsites, but not for long.

I think I was only doing other jobsites for like two to three weeks, and then there was an opening at Zachau Construction for an overnight, and everyone else was living in like sober homes and stuff, so it was hard to accommodate those hours and work those hours.

And I was willing, I like overnight shift, so it was really easy.

I jumped right into overnights there, which gave me a really good foot in the door, and then I was able to prove myself once I got there.

- Yeah, what was it like for you being a woman on a jobsite like that?

- It's definitely different.

I can feel it sometimes.

You get judged almost immediately.

I feel like there's a lot more proving yourself.

I think there's pros and cons.

I think that, you know, this is definitely a male-dominated world, but I feel like I'm more responsible than half the men here.

So I feel like there's some levelheadedness that comes from me.

I feel like we kind of balance each other out.

I feel like a lot of times I balance the jobsite out.

- Okay.

- This is not a day-labor company.

They make as much money as they possibly can pimping guys out for the least they can get away with paying you, charging what they can get away with, and doing nothing for you, paying you out at the end of the day.

So I did this business to counter that, okay?

So when you say where you work, you work at MaineWorks.

If you wanna stay at MaineWorks, there's a career path for you to stay here commensurate with your skills and interests, okay?

Talk to us about that, and recognize like Drew Briggs and Cecil and Mike and these guys who have come through here, Billy, you know, and found a place to stay and said, you know, "I can do this and make it a broader career for myself."

- Any harassment of coworkers based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, age, ancestry, or national origin, that's a lot, don't be a douchebag.

I'm Cecil Solaguren, originally from Blairstown, New Jersey, and I have my own place on St. John Street now.

My parents were fairly well to do, I mean, well enough that my mom got to be a stay-at-home mom.

My father was a police lieutenant in New Jersey.

He was extraordinarily mentally and physically abusive to my whole family, head of the domestic violence squad.

(laughs) I remember like bits and pieces.

Like, he'd go after whichever one of me or my brother were, you know, more vulnerable at the time.

My mom ended up catching at one point something, I forget exactly what it was, but she didn't like wanna believe it, I guess, and then actually saw it happen and made the move to, you know, get a divorce.

She won the house in the custody battle, so we were living with her at the house that we had always lived in.

He came in and he broke in, attacked my mother.

She called the cops, cops came.

He sat in the front seat of the cruiser on the way off the property.

So that was the decision to move up to New Hampshire.

So I was like, I think, so I was 14, we moved up here.

She just left everything behind, got a job as a teacher.

We bought a house and pretty much, you know, 14 to 18-ish was just my mom working three, four jobs trying to support me and my brother.

So I was a good kid right up until about 18.

- The heroin addiction is ravaging a whole generation.

Who's known anybody who's died of an overdose?

Hold your hands up if you've known five people who've died of a heroin overdose.

So I don't even know if you guys can name five people who've died of cancer.

And then along came this sort of seeped into the fabric of the organization, this Suboxone and heroin that hadn't ever been on the scene as I knew it.

It was more just, you know, OUIs and reckless behavior because of drugs and alcohol, not yet the heroin, so yeah.

- The opiate, yeah, the opioid crisis hadn't really hit yet.

- [Margo] Yeah, not at all.

In fact, that didn't start to play, like '13.

- [Thomas] 142 Americans are dying every day of drug overdose, which means we have a 9/11 scale loss every three weeks.

- [Reporter] Overdoses kill about five people every hour across the US.

- [Reporter] Overdoses killed more than 59,000 Americans last year.

It is also more than car crashes or gun violence.

- [Reporter] Overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.

- [Participant] Prescribed pain medication, and like the drugs took over.

- A guy like Jon Katanga, who you met, who just got out of prison that day, he came to MaineWorks penniless, wearing the outfit that he was let out of the gate wearing, literally.

Like, they open the gate and say, "You're done here."

And he looked over his shoulder in a bewildered way to say, "What am I doing here?"

They put him on a bus to Portland.

Someone put him in touch with me on the same day, and he was literally wearing the prison outfit.

And I basically said, "Come on into the back room here.

We've got boots, a coat," and in his case, jeans, underwear, outerwear, socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, everything.

Even though he was going home to live with his mother, she didn't have any way of helping him with any of that.

They're South Sudanese refugees.

So I was delighted to help him.

- I got to MaineWorks, problem, alcohol.

I drink too much.

- You came straight from jail?

- Yeah, I came, not jail, prison.

- [Thomas] Prison.

- Yeah, but in up here they call like- - How do you know about MaineWorks?

- Oh, I did from prison.

- So who told you?

- Yeah, some friend, one of my friend, best friend.

We live in one house, name is Parker, Michael Parker.

He's the best friend.

He know Margo for long time.

And then I say, "Hey guys, now my day just, I left with one week.

My day is now gone."

Hey, my, that is, they call like my caseworker.

Hey guys, when I go home, now I don't have the money.

I don't have anything.

Come from that door friend Margo.

I don't know this Margo or this who.

"Yeah, oh, yeah, oh, meet Margo."

It's so surprising.

Say, "Hey, I need a job.

I don't have money.

How can I get money right now?"

I have kids.

Now it's hard for me- - Where'd you start to work?

Where'd they put you to work?

- Oh, just in Brunswick.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and- - [Thomas] And you started right away, and you've been- - Yeah, I start right away in Brunswick.

Last February, I started in Brunswick.

One day, they replace me, because that time, you know, I need like a weekend job.

- So how long you been with MaineWorks?

- [Jon] A year.

- [Thomas] Year, and that's when you got out, and you been here- - I never stopped.

- You never stopped.

- I never call late.

I never do anything, yes.

Until right now, I need to go, maybe I'm late.

- There's no laws that prohibit anybody discriminating against felons.

Right now, Maine is sort of re-looking at how people can address their criminal record, looking at possibilities of expungements or expanding pardon powers or sealing records, something that will actually allow a person who has been in recovery, that has been getting treatment to maybe undo something that had happened to them in the past with regards to the criminal justice system.

One of the collateral consequences that we're gonna have because of this opioid epidemic and because of this crisis with substance use disorder, that in 20 years we're gonna have a large segment of the population that does have a criminal record.

And that's not gonna be something that we can just openly undo unless we change a lot of the systems or people become more open-minded about actually giving people a chance who have a criminal record.

- What's your sense of the success that Margo's having with this group?

- I think Margo's having a great success with here, and one of the things I try to do is get out to her circles in the morning to really kind of see that success that she's having.

There's a lot of individuals who are doing great work on their own, but we as a community need to support that.

- Do you think this program could, you know, replicate in other communities of the same size or even bigger?

- I absolutely think this program could replicate in other places, but you need dedicated people.

Yeah, I think you really need dedicated people like Margo Walsh to make sure that this program doesn't just exist but actually flourishes.

- The DEA came and busted in.

They had told me that I had the strongest fentanyl powder in that area, so in the way that I bagged it and stuff, they had had somebody snitch on me.

Somebody had worn a wire or did a controlled buy on me.

So when they saw the bag of powder and they tested it, they knew it was immediately mine because of the purity of it.

- So they were ready to throw the book at you?

- [Ryan] Oh, yeah.

- And you told Margo.

- [Ryan] Yep.

- Why'd you tell Margo?

- Just hoping for support, you know.

She was somebody who could see the progress that I was doing.

- [Thomas] You wanted her to be a character witness?

- Yeah, I wanted her to kind of vouch for me.

I mean, I had been seeing Margo every day, 6:00 AM.

I mean, she could vouch for me at that point, and... - Now, what's your observation of other guys in your position, and they're good workers like yourself.

How do you account for that?

I mean, they're drug addicts, right?

So why are they good workers?

- For me, to be honest with you, I think somebody who's taking a second chance and who is a drug addict or who has had a drug problem is actually working harder than the person who hasn't had a tough life.

I don't know, I don't think that you can label somebody's work ethic on their background.

For me, I needed structure, you know what I mean?

I need to hear, you know, Margo usually speaks every single morning, whether it's, "How's your day going, how's this going?"

That to me is showing that somebody actually cares about me.

I'm a drug addict.

I mean, usually when you're at that point, nobody gives a (beep) about you.

She's asking what I need, what I need done, then she's shipping me off for work.

She's putting money in my pocket, which I think is showing more of like how to be a contributing member to society.

(calm music) - MaineWorks and Maine Recovery Fund have found it really challenging to respond to the pandemic, starting with the day we announced that we had to close and then apply for essential worker designation through Governor Mills.

Thankfully we received that really quickly, and we were able to keep people working continually, which was important for their economic viability.

However, it was really, really frightening to put people out not knowing what we were facing.

- As you know, the pandemic has aggravated the substance abuse disorder problem.

We've had more overdose tests this year in Maine, it looks like it will be a record year, a bad record year because of isolation.

I had a Zoom session with a group of substance abuse counselors in Western Maine not long ago, and they're trying, you know, heroically to keep in touch with their clients, with their patients, but it's difficult.

On the other hand, what we've found is that mental health over by telehealth is actually as effective or more effective than face to face for a couple of reasons.

One, people show up for their appointments more frequently, and that's a positive.

Number two, stigma.

- Part of our business plan is to more or less require sober living in order to work at MaineWorks, because if you're not living in a place that you know where you're sleeping every night, your capability and availability for work is very limited.

So we've found that the people that went through rehab or found themselves in early recovery, finding a sober house in Maine, which is a huge community of sober houses- - Right.

- That they were able to start working, and so they have such traction now that they're working for some of the best companies in Maine.

- But you've done something that's really important, I think, and that is to recognize that just saying, "Okay, you have a job, it's gonna pay X dollars an hour, start Monday morning" is not enough, particularly for people, for example, the simple thing of transportation.

There are lots and lots of people in Maine who don't have a driver's license or a car.

And so one of the things I think an innovation is you take that off the table.

You say, "Okay, we will get you to your place of work," and it eliminates one of those barriers.

Health care, those kinds of issues are also important.

And so in order to be successful as what you've done, it has to be a wraparound community.

It's not just a matter of, "Here's a job, see you Monday morning."

- So when my mom started it, she was paying for all the things that, all the services that Maine Recovery Fund provides out of her own checkbook, just out of her own, you know, she just wanted to help.

And so things like, you know, sober housing, you know, living supplies like, you know, toothbrush, toothpaste, T-shirts, boxers, anything you need from Walmart, anything that people needed, even, like, even fines.

So if someone had, you know, like a fine that they needed to pay to reinstate their driver's license, she would sometimes just pay it out of goodness of her heart.

And so what Maine Recovery Fund did was it made it really easy to kind of step in and take what was very much a nonprofit expense and pull it away from the core business, which couldn't support that.

And so, you know, if you wanna have the impact that the, I think that Maine Recovery Fund and MaineWorks are very synergistic.

It's a really cool hybrid model where, you know, we've got the B Corp and the nonprofit that support each other, and you know, Maine Recovery Fund, the nonprofit, allows the impact of MaineWorks to be broader.

- If you could expand to other states, you know, nationwide, you could raise money nationwide.

- Yes.

- I mean, what's the limit here, what's the ceiling?

Where do you- - There's no ceiling, no way.

The need for our service is commensurate with the number of people who are suffering in post incarceration or post addiction.

It's a time when your whole life changes, and there aren't that many people that have the appetite for this.

It's pretty heavy lifting.

And so we are way out in front already, so we could really be doing this more nationally.

One of the other opportunities is that there's endless need.

There's an endless supply, right?

There's a devourous, there's a great opportunity to place people, and there's a lot of people that need the help.

So we're basically the middle man.

But I totally think that the spirit of youth and the young people that I've come across, we have a woman named Autumn who works at MaineWorks.

She just graduated from Bowdoin.

She could absolutely do this.

It's just a formula.

It's supply and demand, supply and demand.

So yes, it's nice to have someone who kind of can introduce themselves to a lot of people, but you know, anyone with a recruiting background could do this, and anybody with a heart would love it.

- So it is possible to find the next, quote, unquote, Margo?

- Yes, yes, I don't even know what I bring except connectivity and compassion, but that's not unique.

- [Justin] It's like that coldness I take onto my physical body.

If I can own that, then I can own my emotional state, and then there's nothing blocking me from anything.

It's only me.

It's me versus me, right?

Every day when I wake up, and I open my eyes, it's me versus me.

So I could ask myself, "Who's gonna win today," right?

- [Thomas] One of you.

- [Justin] Yeah, one of us, right?

Is it gonna be bad me or good me, you know?

It could change from day to day.

I can do this and still bad me wins, but at least I did something, right, you know?

So I can't lose no matter what I do.

And that's the way I look at it, you know?

At least I do something.

I do something about it no matter what.

I can't always change my emotional state.

I can't always change my mental state.

I can always change my physical state.

I can always listen to my body.

My body will always nurture me no matter what, right?

It will never, it will never, I won't allow it, and I haven't figured out which one yet.

It will not break down.

It's like a (beep) jet engine inside me.

It's like an intensity at all times, literally from the moment I open my eyes to the moment I close my eyes.

It's just a fire.

To connect to that is a powerful, powerful thing.

And to be able to bring that back to yourself, 'cause a lot of people when they're in that agonizing pain, they think they're breaking apart, and you're not.

You're actually doing the exact opposite of that.

- I've never witnessed Justin go in.

He told me that he does this on a regular basis, totally understood that, but it was really, it was a different experience to watch it.

- [Thomas] Were you surprised that Justin does this?

- [Joanne] No.

- [Thomas] Why?

- Because as I know Justin, he's experienced things so much more painful, and this would be nothing compared to that.

So there you go.

He's someone I know who embodies experience.

- [Thomas] And where did you meet Justin, at MaineWorks?

- I met Justin at MaineWorks three years ago maybe when Justin first arrived.

- [Thomas] But you saw him open up, right, through that process of the circle a little bit over time?

- Oh, Justin was amazing, because here he was describing a prison bid and a lot of time in solitary and then started to quote Carl Jung, Yeats, Dostoevsky, down the line, and that got my attention.

- This is in the circle, right?

- In the circle.

- So the other guys must've thought- - [Joanne] Their jaws dropped a little bit.

- Right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, their jaws did drop.

So here I was watching someone who had spent time alone, had articulated his experience, and had investigated the human condition.

Anyone wrestling with those human challenges is someone I think we all need to listen to.

And partly what MaineWorks is so cool for is that it brings in people with stories, and if they're able to share those, those stories help other people.

- I mean, it sounds like you and Margo and these guys all found each other at a certain time.

- [Joanne] That's remarkable.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I feel, Margo's been doing, she's been chugging along, you know, doing her thing powerfully and beautifully for years.

That she let me in the sanctuary of her truck and allowed me to witness that, 'cause that's truly my role, I don't work as staff other than witness basically, is something I am forever grateful for.

- Clearly you've discovered that you found yourself in a totally remarkable, I mean, spiritual situation, yeah.

- Remarkable situation.

I was so blown away, I couldn't use my camera for about a week.

First of all, I felt it was too intimate.

So when I showed up with Margo that first day and that first week, I never took a photograph.

- Eventually you did start photographing them.

So you've been sort of a photograph chronicler of the MaineWorks, really, and that's, you serve that purpose.

You show up, you photograph them, you record them on social media, you tell the story.

- Well, I mean, the power of bearing witness is something I never really thought about, but lo and behold, when you bear witness just by being present to this unfolding of people's lives at their most vulnerable and broken, there's something deeply, so deeply human about it that nothing has to be done in that moment.

You know, when Justin Downey showed up in that circle, I felt privileged to be in his company.

- Knowing what you know and having seen what you've seen, do you think this group could happen somewhere else and somewhere else and somewhere else, big and small cities across this country and with, you know, different societal influences and you know, this country being as diverse as it is, but with the same underlying problems that we have in the US?

- Hell yes.

(calm music) - Senator King, we're really hoping that in this new administration with the priorities being set forth that MaineWorks will have a place at the table.

We've already started in New Hampshire.

We're in Massachusetts, and at the invitation of one of our biggest clients, we've been invited to New York City, which I say in that funny Maine way because what's appropriate and necessary in New York is going to look a lot different than Maine, but the mothership here in Maine can discern the differences regionally.

- Sure.

- Working in collaboration with a local person, so we are- - But see, I think one of the important, a couple of important roles for the federal government, I think one is research and development, but another is creating pilots for social and societal issues.

Somebody once said, "The government should steer not row," which I think is an interesting way to look at it, and the steering to me is developing models that can be replicated around the country.

And you know, they call the states laboratories of democracy.

I think that's true, and we need to see what works.

You know, when I was governor, I pressed the National Governors Association to create a clearinghouse, a good ideas clearinghouse, because if there's something going on in Seattle that works for preschool education, I wanna know it.

I don't wanna have to invent it here in Maine.

- Exactly, exactly and I wonder if you could just comment on taking a Maine-based model and perhaps having a place in the discussion about staffing for the future.

- Well, you know, we're discussing this infrastructure bill.

If and when we get it done, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity created for people in pretty well-paying jobs, construction, all the things that are related, laying wire for broadband.

and this is gonna be a great opportunity for places like MaineWorks that are dealing with putting people into, you want good jobs.

You don't want just sending people out.

You know, you want good jobs, and I think the infrastructure bill and the work that's being done in Washington may lend itself to that.

And by the way, you don't have to wait for the infrastructure bill.

I don't know if you're aware, but the American Rescue Plan is sending a lot of money to Maine.

The City of Portland, for example, is getting $45 million, and all the communities in Maine, that's the largest number, but all the communities are getting significant amounts of money plus the state, and a lot of that, I believe, is gonna be used for capital.

In fact, my belief is it should be used for capital, 'cause it's one-time money.

But that could be used, again, to create opportunities for people like those who are employed by MaineWorks to get a start in an important segment of our society of building things.

That's what we have to do.

And so I think you're in a good place.

Let's get the infrastructure built, but there are opportunities being created right now.

You should be talking to the City of Portland about what are they gonna do with that 45 million bucks.

- I'll make that call on my way home.

(laughs) And if there's an interest in our model, we are basically making decisions on a location-by-location basis, and another factor that weighs in as we're considering where to go next is what are the communities across the country that are really supportive of people in recovery from substance use disorder?

- The important thing about what you're doing, it comes down to one phrase.

We can't afford to waste any good people, and you're finding those good people in places that historically nobody's looked and people have given up.

And the combination of showing the community what can be done by these good people and showing them what they can do that they didn't believe they could do before is that's gonna be a really crucial place to be, I think, in the next 10, 20, 30 years.

- And I mean, I know none of you guys feel all that exceptional, right, just feel like you can turn around and this guy's just like you, that guy, you know, same (beep) steamer trunk full of baggage from the past, same glimmer of hope, right?

And so I hope you all share that and feel that because we've got you.

If I know this group, I can say that unilaterally.

There is, look who's here on a Friday!

There's no one that's all (beep) up and not showing up.

You guys are standing here.

That to me is what this company is all about, your ability to come in and stand here.

So I just wanna commend you for what you guys are doing.

Joanne, welcome back.

Can you just explain to some of the guys who haven't known you as long why you're here.

- I found out about this crazy woman in Falmouth, Maine, who drove around with a minivan picking up guys from the pre-release, bringing them to work, and bringing them back.

And I, at that moment, kind of, you know, went down on my knees and said, "This is a woman I've gotta meet."

Who does that?

Who does that?

Who goes right into the belly of the beast and offers a hand and says, "We got ya."

You know, "We get a work for you, not a problem."

That attitude was so attractive to me and so missing in the world that I called her and said, "Hey, you want some photography, you know?

I'll show up."

Mind you, I'd never photographed people at that time, ever, never photographed people.

Showed up here in this circle and was so profoundly moved by you guys and by how Margo connected with you, so moved by the journey that you guys are on because you're (beep) heroes on a hero's journey, and that's the only way I could see it.

I couldn't see drug addicts and ex-cons and all that, all those words.

What I found was really profoundly moving people trying their best to establish some traction in a life that had gone down to, you know, smoke and ashes.

And I related to that, and you guys showed up to that painful, difficult, impossible situation every (beep) day and showed up and showed up and showed up to one another, and you were kind to one another.

And like, that's what's missing from the world in my perspective is what's happening here, is hitting some traction in the most painful place in your lives, sucks.

I think of you, Shane, today, with the pain you might be experiencing right now with the deep loss.

Everyone in this circle, I can't imagine how many people have lost dear people in their lives.

It's an impossible situation to rectify and that you showed up and you're still showing up, and I know about that, and the rest of my day I'm gonna build on that because you, the wisdom of that is profound.

That's what matters in the world.

So I'm here on the outside of the circle saying this is what the rest of the world is struggling with is what the (beep) to do when everything goes upside down, and you guys are doing that.

Your heroes on your way home, and heroes have to slay dragons, and you're in the messiness of that right now, but you're going home.

(powerful music) (calm music) (calm music continues) (calm music continues)