When Deshawn Payne first heard about BY Training, he though it sounded too good to be true. The program offered the chance to accomplish in three weeks what would normally take months. Also, Deshawn lacked the confidence that he could handle it.

“I thought, ‘What did they want with little old me?’” Deshawn recalls. He had had a patchy work history up to that point.

But BY navigator Macoy Riley kept encouraging him, so he signed up. And immediately he was sold. Students in his class at Southeast Community Services had varying levels of experience, but the teacher treated everyone with respect.

“It was a judgment-free zone,” DeShawn says. “Everybody was treated well, no matter their background.”

The day he started the class in February was an important date for him personally. It was the first anniversary of the death of his great-grandmother, who raised him. He believed it was a sign that his life was about to change.

“I had been a mess-up all my life while she was alive,” Deshawn says. “Now I’m getting it together. It’s bittersweet.”

He valued the high-quality learning that the class provided. Knowledge is the key to success, he says. In the class he gained computer skills, discovered how to make a resume, and learned business etiquette. Now he is more comfortable approaching people in a work setting, and he feels like a professional.

The support that BY offers goes beyond work preparation. They even connected Deshawn with a lawyer who helped him expunge his record so he could get his first driver’s license.

Graduation was a hectic period in his life, as he was expecting a new daughter at the same time. But the support from Macoy kept him on track, during the program and beyond.

“They did more than you would expect,” Deshawn says. “Macoy just keeps following up. Every time he writes me, I’ve got good news. BY Construction and Macoy — it gives you faith in human nature.”

By the time he graduated from the BY program, he had a job in landscaping with Prestige Lawn Solutions already lined up. He loves the creative aspect of his work. A project may start as a pile of dirt, but then he can build something beautiful out of it. Eventually he would like to do renovation work. Long-term, he might even try to become an architect or an engineer.

That’s a far cry from how he used to imagine his future.

“I was young and dumb and thought I could slip through the cracks in life,” says Deshawn, now 31. “It was back-to-back trial and tribulation. But I was able to overcome it with a smile on my face. BY helped me get it.”

“Now I don’t feel lost,” Deshawn concludes. “Certainly this gave me my drive back. It made me realize I’m in control. I know what I have to do, and I’m doing it. It feels amazing.”

Stories like Deshawn’s wouldn’t be possible without support from Lilly Endowment – Thank you!