Belay Enterprises in Christianity Today

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Christianity Today's "This is Our City Project" profiles Belay Enterprises and Bud's Warehouse in an excellent piece that beautifully shares our mission and vision. Join me in praying that others around the country sense a calling to create businesses to employ individuals rebuilding lives from addiction, homelessness and prison.

Doing Good and Turning a Profit

Recidivism is an ungainly word for a disturbing reality: the proportion of people released from prison who are rearrested or returned to custody. In the United States, according to a recent study from the Pew Center on the States, 43.3 percent of convicts released in 2004 were back in prison three years later.

There are many reasons for this stubbornly high rate—it has barely budged in at least a decade—but high on the list is the difficulty former prisoners have in finding legitimate employment. Who wants to hire an ex-con?

In Denver, the answer is Belay Enterprises. Founded in 1995, Belay's mission is to partner with the church to create businesses that employ people rebuilding their lives after serving a prison sentence. Executive director James Reiner has been working for the company for over 13 years. "We create businesses for folks who have been excluded from the job market."

Read the whole article here.

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