My Story: Karl Lamont Lee

I have been struggling for years trying to pay child support, sometimes not even making enough to live off of. My life was hard. It was difficult to find work that would allow me to pay my bills and make my child support payments too.

I was put into Goodwill Industries of North Louisiana’s GoodSupport Program by my child support case worker, after having a case in the child support office for many years. I received help from her in learning how to apply for jobs, how to dress and how to answer questions in interviews. I took the classes that Goodwill had in their job center that helped me to learn how to use a computer, make a resume and how to budget money.

The GoodSupport program was hard work but I got a lot of help from it. I had to complete seven to ten job applications a week and show up to court every Tuesday to report my progress. The program gave me the support I needed to keep going.

I went to interviews and remembered the skills that I learned through the classes. During this time, I continued to work at night in a grocery store, but knew that I needed another job that I could depend on to help my family.

After much hard work, I finally got a job at the Hilton, working as a maintenance engineer. Since then, I can take care of my kids. I am so proud. I have been able to sign up for benefits at this job and I am really happy. I enjoy going to work each day and feel respected by the management and my coworkers.

The real story is after five months working at the Hilton, I made employee of the month. My goal is to make chief engineer so I can send both of my kids to college. Hard work does pay off.