Forty-eight-year-old Brian Klos was just recently released from prison after spending six years behind bars.
“It is a learning experience in jail and when you come out you think there is no hope. It all started with drugs. I come from a great family, I just strayed down the wrong path,” Klos said.
Now he's finding the hope he needs and working to get his life back on track with the help of Peaceprints of Western New York.
“This is our phase one transitional residence program called the Bissonette House. It provides transitional housing to 21 recently released to the community from state facilities,” Executive Director of Peaceprints Cindi Mceachon said.
The facility located on Grider Street in Buffalo is getting a makeover. Students with UB's Prosperity Scholars program were doing some remodeling as part of their Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service project.
“We've realized employment is a massive concern to our individuals but barriers are popping up when it comes to technology. We've decided to integrate technology so the students are helping us update an old office that we are turning into a computer lab,” Mceachon said.
Student Kevin Kullen was hard at work for the cause. “Today's day and age computers are an essentials to help them move in a good direction and it's something we are super happy to help do."
The Prosperity Scholar Program helps get students from the University at Buffalo and Canisius College involved with the community.
“To identify students that show promise to contribute to economic development through job creation,” Harden Borden with the Prosperity program said.
Klos says he is thankful to have the support getting back on his feet and says he is seizing the possible. “If you take responsibility to take this program they give you. You could turn your lives around. There are so many avenues we can do to change our lives we just have to take it."
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