The Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, makes 35,000 pounds of brownies a day.
You may be asking yourself, “Why would anyone need 35,000 pounds of brownies a day?”
To which I respond, “You’ve probably eaten some of them.”
Look familiar?
But I digress.
Greyston has an interesting hiring policy. They’ll hire anyone.
You put your name on a list, and wait.
Even convicted felons, like this guy.
.
Dion is a supervisor at the bakery now. He wasn’t always worthy of that responsibility. This is his story. (It ends happily.)
Dion didn’t have a lot to look forward to as a kid.
He grew up in the projects in Yonkers. His mom had two jobs and barely got by.
So he made some bad choices out of desperation.
He started selling drugs at 14.
He was in and out of jail. He was selling drugs to people in his community.
He finally had a wake-up call when he was sentenced to a longer prison sentence.
He had a lot of time to think in there.
And he decided to make different choices.
When he got out, he decided to get a job.
Being a felon, however, meant lots of people were wary of hiring him.
After weeks and weeks of rejection from people who didn’t want to give a felon a second chance, a friend mentioned Greyston Bakery to him.
So he added his name to the list. And one day he got the call from Greyston.
And then things started looking up.
He ended up being one of Greyston’s most successful employees, a dad, and full of plans for the future.
He even scored his own TED talk.
And he has something important to say about giving people opportunities.
Learn more about Greyston and Dion here.
