Calling All Business Minds!

PEP is actively recruiting business executives and MBA students to come alongside our Class 13 participants in the role of Business Plan Advisors.

As an Advisor‚ you will provide both conceptual and grammatical feedback to your assigned participant over a four–month period from February through May. All work is done completely by email, and we highly encourage (but don’t require) a trip to prison to meet your participant as well.

More information and the opportunity to sign up can be found at www.pep.org/advisors. Sign ups are due by January 15‚ 2010.

Volunteers Share Their Impressions

In the last 2 months‚ Businessmen and women from around the country joined Class 12 for Etiquette Night (ladies only), Selling Night, Employment Night and Pitch Day. Here are some of their thoughts on the experience.

"This event was life changing! I’ve never felt more respected, protected, and welcomed from a group of men than I did during PEP." -- Stephanie Wells

"For these guys, the only way out is through. That's just what they're doing – they took every single opportunity to ask questions and learn, knowing the day/moment would soon pass." -- Emily Hibbard

"PEP is a place where hope is alive and lives are being transformed. It is the most sincere ministry of its type that I have ever seen in operation. It works! The men radiate a true redemption personally and professionally." -- Melanie Smith

New Event Photos

Take a look at the newest images from recent PEP events at the Cleveland Correctional Center. View Pictures Here

Graduation Guest Speaker

PEP participants and their families will be joined by special guest speaker Barry Minkow at Class 12 graduation on December 4, 2009.

Minkow made headlines for being the youngest person in United States business history to take a company public through an S-1 registration statement before he was 21 years old. However, his company, ZZZZ Best Co., Inc. (which at one time had a $300 million dollar public stock evaluation) was built on fraud and deceit.

After more than seven years in prison, he transformed his life completely - earning a Master's of Divinty Degree, now serving as a Senior Pastor at the Community Bible Church in San Diego, California, as well as a licensed private investigator, consultant and trainer to law enforcement agencies like the FBI and others.

For his full bio, read more here.

Behind the Scenes

A first–hand look at what happens at PEP event, as told by PEP volunteer Stephanie Wells.

When I first signed up for PEP‚ I thought I was signing up for another service event that would fulfill a requirement for Business Honors. I had heard about the program and even spoken with a PEP graduate, so I was interested and very excited, but what I came to feel after attending 2 events is more than I ever bargained for.

My first event was etiquette night – ladies only – and the theme was proper business dress and manners. I vividly remember standing outside the PEP room, waiting for the guard to open the door to what I expected was a room full of quiet, resentful men who really just wanted to get through the program and get on with their lives. I could not have been more wrong.

Read Full Story Here

Outside the Wire

Updates on PEP graduates as they make their way in the free world, outside the wire.

Only a week after graduation, Craig was on the outside. But his first day was full of logistical problems and negativity. A trip to the wrong transitional house made everything more difficult than he'd planned. Temptation from his old life returned, and his new life commitments were in jeopardy. The PEP re-entry staff quickly intervened and got him to a safer environment.

With PEP’s ten driving values as the foundation of their new lives, the harsh realities of life on outside the razor wire of the prison unit are more manageable than before. At graduation, Craig won both the Servant Leader and Execution awards. This capped off a day which has become his most favorite memory of being in the program.

Read Full Story Here

Straight from the Inside

Class 12 participants are in the home stretch of the five month program inside the unit – working hard on final business plans and preparing for graduation. Every week, they share their thoughts in weekly journal entries – read an excerpt below and then click through to read the full archive.

"Today was another wonderful day in the alternate universe called hope, commonly referred to as PEP. We experienced the culmination of our assignment in reading a book called Integrity Selling as four guests came today, with a combined 100 years of experience, to teach us the importance of selling with integrity."

Read More Journals Here