From a Fortune Society referral to a Bartlett Dairy apprentice

In five months, Shawn Gilchrist went from a Fortune Society referral to a full-time CDL Driver Apprentice role at Bartlett Dairy — the family-owned, minority-owned New York milk company opening a new 54,000-square-foot distribution center in Jamaica, Queens. He's earning $65,000 base plus $25.50/hour.

This is the story of how that happened — and why the most important part of it took place before he ever walked through our door.

"You and Eric helped me move to the next level in my life."

That's how Shawn put it. The rest is just how it happened.

The Fortune Society

By December 22, 2025 — the day Shawn applied to our CDL program — The Fortune Society had already done the work that makes a story like this possible. Stable housing. Behavioral health support. Employment readiness. Parole compliance support. Trust with a system that had given him every reason to opt out.

This is the part of reentry that doesn't make press releases. It's also the part that determines whether anything that comes next is possible.

The Fortune Society has been doing this work in New York City for nearly six decades — housing, behavioral health, alternatives-to-incarceration programming, employment services, advocacy — and they do it better than almost anyone. Their mission, plainly stated, is Building People, Not Prisons. When Shawn was referred to us, he wasn't a candidate we had to assess for readiness. He arrived ready.

At Emerge

What the next five months looked like:

• December 22, 2025 — Applied to our CDL program
• February 7, 2026 — Licensed Class A CDL through Sunny Truck Driving School in the Bronx
• May 12, 2026 — Signed his offer letter with Bartlett Dairy

Compensation: $65,000 base plus $25.50/hour.

Five months from intake to a career.

Our part of the work is straightforward: CDL instruction at a partner driving school in the Bronx, individualized success coaching with Coach Beto Garza and Skills Trainer Eric Saito, employer matching, and 30/60/90-day support post-hire. It's good work. It's also the easy part, relative to what came before it.

After Emerge

Bartlett Dairy — the family-owned milk company that started with one truck in 1963 and now employs roughly 500 people across three locations — doesn't hire on a maybe. When they signed Shawn, they were trusting the full chain that produced him: The Fortune Society's readiness work, Emerge's training, and Shawn's own grit.

Their new 54,000-square-foot Jamaica facility brought 165 good-paying jobs back to Queens at an average wage of $70,000. Shawn is part of that homecoming.

One licensed driver, vouched for by two organizations that don't put their name on a candidate they aren't confident in.

That's the model. The Fortune Society prepares. Emerge trains. Employers like Bartlett Dairy hire. Each link is only as strong as the one before it, and the one before Emerge is the one most workforce programs skip.

What's next for the Emerge Career × Fortune Society partnership

Shawn is one of several. He won't be the last.

Over the coming months, we're scaling the referral pipeline between The Fortune Society and Emerge Career — moving from one-off success stories to a repeatable pathway that any Fortune Society client ready for a vocational career can step into.

What that looks like in practice: a clear referral process for Fortune Society case managers and employment specialists, dedicated intake support on our side, and continued coordination on the wraparound services that make outcomes like Shawn's possible.

If you're a Fortune Society client ready for what comes next — or a case manager with someone in mind — visit emergecareer.com or reach out directly. We're building this pipeline together, and we're just getting started.

#ReentryWorks  #CDL  #BuildingPeopleNotPrisons  #NewYorkCity  #WorkforceDevelopment  #FortuneSociety

About Emerge Career

Emerge Career is a public-benefit corporation building the workforce development infrastructure that justice-impacted New Yorkers deserve. Through our partnership with the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and our network of community-based partners — including The Fortune Society — we deliver Commercial Driver's License (CDL), HVAC, diesel technician, and construction trades training, with end-to-end support from intake through 30/60/90-day post-hire retention. Learn more at emergecareer.com.

About The Fortune Society

The Fortune Society was founded in 1967 and is one of the nation's most respected organizations supporting successful reentry from incarceration and promoting alternatives to incarceration. Headquartered in Long Island City, Queens, Fortune Society delivers a continuum of services — housing, behavioral health, employment, advocacy, ATI programming — that has helped hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers come home and stay home.

‍