IGNITE
Ignite Newsletter: 2026 July
July 8, 2026
By Tristyn, Café Momentum Ambassador Fellow
There’s something nobody prepares you for about returning home, truly returning, not just stepping through a doorway. It’s the burden of proving your worth in a world that already judged you before you arrived. I know that burden intimately. I’ve dragged it into job interviews, into meetings with hiring managers, into spaces where I had to weigh how much of my past was safe to share versus how much would cost me my shot before I even had the chance to prove myself.
Workforce development isn’t just a phrase I use. It’s deeply personal. It’s the line between a young person coming home with drive and finding a place to channel it, or coming home ready to start over only to face doors slammed shut before any real conversation begins. I know what it means to be offered a chance with one hand while a system works to snatch it back with the other. My turning point wasn’t by chance. It was Café Momentum, a place that offered more than employment. It taught me what it means to show up, to grow and to trust that I deserved to be invested in.
That’s the heart of this month’s focus. Workforce development is about dignity. It’s about safety. And for young people navigating reentry right now, it’s urgent. There’s a way forward: policies are evolving, legislators are paying attention and stories like mine are reaching the spaces where real decisions happen. We each have a part to play in that. Every one of us.
FEATURED NEWS AND REFLECTIONS
The Challenge of Finding a Job After Prison. I have been that person who walked into an opportunity only to watch it disappear the moment my past came up. What this article captures is not just a statistic, it is the exhaustion of doing everything right and still being told that you are not enough. Café Momentum was the first place that looked past a record and saw potential. That kind of trust is what makes the difference between someone building a future and someone being pushed back toward the only options the system left open. Every employer, every lawmaker, every community member has a role in changing that.
How To Improve Employment Outcomes for Young Adults Leaving Incarceration. When I came through Café Momentum, I was not just handed an opportunity and left to figure it out. I was met where I was. The workforce training, the case management, the people who checked in on me as a whole person and not just a project that wraparound support is exactly what this report is calling for, and it is exactly what changed my life. I am a young mother now building something I am genuinely proud of, using the skills, the financial literacy, and the leadership I gained through this program every single day. What this research makes clear is that the gap is not in the potential of justice-involved youth. It is in the investment. And that is something we have the power to change.
Men incarcerated as youth share their stories to spark change. This story stayed with me because I understand what it means to walk into a room full of people with power and decide to tell the truth anyway. Storytelling is not just healing, it is strategy. When justice-involved youth speak directly to the people writing the laws, something shifts. I have seen it. I have felt it. That is why I do this work as an Ambassador Fellow. Our stories are not just personal, they are evidence. They are proof of what the system costs and what investment can create.
MY STORY
I moved through a system that processed me without ever truly seeing me, and that included the struggle to find work afterward. For a while, I believed my record spoke louder than anything else I had to offer, that my shot at a real future was gone and survival was the best I could hope for. Café Momentum changed that. For the first time, someone was interested in all of who I was, not just the parts that needed fixing or watching. They gave me real skills, real accountability and real relationships with people who showed up and expected the same from me. That kind of environment changes you. It makes you believe you are worth investing in.
Today I am a young mother and mentor building a life I am proud of, using the social skills, financial literacy and leadership I gained at Café Momentum every day. I am working toward a career in education and showing my child what rising from a hard start looks like. Being an Ambassador Fellow means carrying that forward, using my voice as a bridge for other justice-involved youth who need proof that it is possible.
This matters because so many young people in the justice system, especially young women facing everything reentry throws at them, get written off before anyone gives them a real chance. The barriers are real, but so is what happens when someone chooses to see past them. Justice-involved youth deserve a place to land, a community that believes in them, and the tools to build a future that is truly theirs. I want to create for others what Café Momentum created for me: a space where accountability and care coexist, where your past does not cap your future, and where your story becomes something you share with pride instead of hiding in shame. When we invest in justice-involved youth, not as a slogan but as a practice, we transform not just individual lives but whole communities.
GET INVOLVED
The need is real and so is your power to do something about it. Employment discrimination against justice-involved youth does not persist because change is impossible. It persists because not enough people have demanded better.
This month, we are asking you to be one of the people who do. Learn what justice involved young people are facing when it comes to employment, and share what you learn. Advocate to local employers about fair chance hiring. Contact your representatives and push for workforce development funding that actually reaches young people who need it most. And support Café Momentum by donating, volunteering, dining at one of our restaurants, or simply spreading the word about the work being done here. The young people in this program are not waiting for the system to catch up. They are building something better right now. And they need you in their corner.