MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Every Tuesday, as part of our Greater Memphis on a Mission Series, we highlight organizations making Memphis better. This week, we caught up with a group that believes in independence through job skills training and housing assistance.

“I lost my father when I was little. You know, it had a big impact on me,” said Rufus Fleming, a participant of the New Start Foundation.

Fleming was 16 when he made some bad decisions.

“Hanging with the wrong people, you know, taking stuff that doesn’t belong to me, you know. Stuff like that,” Fleming said.

After serving six months in juvenile detention, he was offered an opportunity to get his life back on track through the New Start Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that supports and empowers underserved communities through job skills training and housing assistance.

“We have a youth development program where some youth who are between 15 to 19 are receiving job skills training, and most, if not all, have a background with the Shelby County juvenile court. And so we’re working to help them remediate their backgrounds,” said Trey Carter, founder and executive director of New Start Foundation.

Through that program, Fleming was able to get his forklift certification and learned about banking along the way.

New Start Foundation also offers safe and affordable housing for those struggling to keep a roof over their head or living in substandard conditions.

“During some of our job training, we do a lot of assessing of our participants, and one of the main issues and barriers was housing,” Carter said. “We work directly with some contractors. We’ve acquired some properties and we just we fix them up. We wanted to make sure they have a place that someone can call home and not have to worry about the housing side. Now, they can focus on employment. They can focus on their family.”

Their workforce development program, available to anyone 18 and older, is designed to bridge the gap between education and employment.

“Sometimes a narrative is that no one wants to work. There’s several individuals around our community who want to work. Unfortunately, they might not have the skills for some of the employment opportunities. And so we don’t want that to be a barrier. So we provide training in our largest industry here, which is logistics, distribution, and transportation,” Carter said.

Fleming now has a full-time job and knows that hard work does pay off.

“I’m feeling great. As long as I keep on pushing it, I know my father. He’d be a proud man. Just gotta be there for my momma and my siblings,” Fleming said.

That is why Brown Missionary Baptist Church and the Mid-South Genesis CDC donated $1,000 to New Start Foundation, because it’s not a handout, it’s a hand up along with mentorship that can truly make a difference.

More information on the non-profit can be found here.