{"id":1381110,"date":"2018-12-06T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/"},"modified":"2018-12-06T13:23:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T20:23:00","slug":"cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/local-news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"CDOT acknowledged for parolee work program partnership with Center for Employment Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/\">Daily staff report<\/a><\/span>  DENVER \u2014 The Center for Employment Opportunities has recognized the Colorado Department of Transportation for its role in providing transitional work to individuals on probation or recently released on parole.<br \/>\nCDOT&#8217;s partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities has provided employment for nearly 200 people since May 2017. Participants in the program work within CDOT&#8217;s Division of Highway Maintenance to help maintain bridges, clear graffiti and trim or remove unwanted vegetation.<br \/>\nA Center for Employment Opportunities recognition and presentation event was held at CDOT&#8217;s Denver Headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 6.<br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;re honored to be recognized for helping other people get a new lease on life by providing employment opportunities,&#8221; said Michael Lewis, CDOT executive director.  &#8220;And in addition to helping themselves, they&#8217;re helping us maintain our highway system, so it&#8217;s a win-win for everyone involved.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Center for Employment Opportunities is a national organization that provides individuals on probation or those recently released on parole with job training, placement and support. Its Colorado operation launched in May 2017 after the Governor&#8217;s Office of Community Partnerships, along with the Department of Corrections, visited Center for Employment Opportunities&#8217; New York office in 2015 and found it a compelling program to reduce recidivism and wanted to bring it to the state.<br \/>\n&#8220;We are thrilled with, and grateful for, our partnership with CDOT,&#8221; said Samra Haider, national director of Center for Employment Opportunities. &#8220;Thank you to CDOT for working with (us) to provide returning citizens in Colorado the tools and opportunities to be successful in finding work and stabilizing their lives.&#8221;<br \/>\nSince the program&#8217;s inception, 23,000 work hours have included maintenance on 140 bridges, the removal of more than 1,700 bags of garbage, graffiti elimination and clearing the state highway right-of-way of unwanted vegetation.<br \/>\n&#8220;The initial success of the program has allowed us to expand it to other parts of the state,&#8221; said Kyle Lester, CDOT&#8217;s director of highway maintenance. &#8220;From its start in the Denver area, the program&#8217;s now grown to include the Greeley-Fort Collins area and the Colorado Springs area.&#8221;<br \/>\nCDOT expects to expand the program to other areas of the state in the next two years, including to the Western Slope and Southwestern Colorado. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/\" target=\"_blank\" id=\"rssmi_more\"> &#8230;read more<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Via:: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"CDOT acknowledged for parolee work program partnership with Center for Employment Opportunities\">Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DENVER \u2014 The Center for Employment Opportunities has recognized the Colorado Department of Transportation for its role in providing transitional work to individuals on probation or recently released on parole.<br \/>\nCDOT&#8217;s partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities has provided employment for nearly 200 people since May 2017. Participants in the program work within CDOT&#8217;s Division of Highway Maintenance to help maintain bridges, clear graffiti and trim or remove unwanted vegetation.<br \/>\nA Center for Employment Opportunities recognition and presentation event was held at CDOT&#8217;s Denver Headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 6.<br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;re honored to be recognized for helping other people get a new lease on life by providing employment opportunities,&#8221; said Michael Lewis, CDOT executive director.  &#8220;And in addition to helping themselves, they&#8217;re helping us maintain our highway system, so it&#8217;s a win-win for everyone involved.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe Center for Employment Opportunities is a national organization that provides individuals on probation or those recently released on parole with job training, placement and support. Its Colorado operation launched in May 2017 after the Governor&#8217;s Office of Community Partnerships, along with the Department of Corrections, visited Center for Employment Opportunities&#8217; New York office in 2015 and found it a compelling program to reduce recidivism and wanted to bring it to the state.<br \/>\n&#8220;We are thrilled with, and grateful for, our partnership with CDOT,&#8221; said Samra Haider, national director of Center for Employment Opportunities. &#8220;Thank you to CDOT for working with (us) to provide returning citizens in Colorado the tools and opportunities to be successful in finding work and stabilizing their lives.&#8221;<br \/>\nSince the program&#8217;s inception, 23,000 work hours have included maintenance on 140 bridges, the removal of more than 1,700 bags of garbage, graffiti elimination and clearing the state highway right-of-way of unwanted vegetation.<br \/>\n&#8220;The initial success of the program has allowed us to expand it to other parts of the state,&#8221; said Kyle Lester, CDOT&#8217;s director of highway maintenance. &#8220;From its start in the Denver area, the program&#8217;s now grown to include the Greeley-Fort Collins area and the Colorado Springs area.&#8221;<br \/>\nCDOT expects to expand the program to other areas of the state in the next two years, including to the Western Slope and Southwestern Colorado. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/cdot-acknowledged-for-parolee-work-program-partnership-with-center-for-employment-opportunities\/\" target=\"_blank\" id=\"rssmi_more\"> &#8230;read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1381110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 09:03:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KKCH - The Lift FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1381110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1381110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1381110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1381110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kkch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1381110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}