The pastor and businessman never expected to find himself in prison, and yet there he was. So he decided to dive in, serving the minds and souls of the men around him. When Lee got out, he started a re-entry program called Vital Signs, which has helped over 1,800 returning citizens, boasts a recidivism rate of only 2%, and our favorite part is that it’s self-sustaining!
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. And we continue now with part two of our conversation with Pastor Lee Robbins. Right after these brief messages from ours and her sponsors, we now return to our conversation about Pastor ly serving his fellow prisoners. So that's phenomenal, but that ends when your time ends.
Right, and so my time now it's time for me to go. So I have to build up some people. Three and a half years, three and a half years?
Did you do all three and a half? No?
I actually got the benefit of the Second Chance Act.
Good.
That was two of thousands of us that got the benefit of getting going home six months early in case.
You did three.
So I did three and then six and a half way house.
I got to ask you something, Yeah, how long does three years feel like when you've found a wife and children outside waiting on you? How long does that feel like? My life? What does a day feel like?
A day? It's first of all, you are active, and you're working in there, and you're just like anybody else. You're working. But I can remember coming home and I'm making twenty five dollars a month, twelve cents an hour working full time and inside the prison, and I would use fifteen of those dollars to call home to talk to my wife, to talk to my children. She would bring up some disciplinary issues to the children, and I couldn't find it in my heart to really get on them.
Yeah, how do you get on your children?
Yeah, you ain't got number two minutes and you're getting on them, and you don't want that to be. And so I was easy going there, you know, and just you know, just speaking love to them, you know, speaking life to them, and and then you get a few minutes. Mom was so unselfish, so she like spend the time with the kids, you know. So I would do that, and uh, you know, in times of visitations were like crazy week she would bring them up every week, and uh, they love that because they get a chance to get to the vending machines and act crazy and.
Type of stuff. Ocean and the wife spark. She stuck by you.
Absolutely absolutely every single week. Every single week she bought. There was one week that she didn't. And it really, Uh that bothered me because that because you can't call out, so you don't know why, I don't know why. You know, things maybe they got into an accident on their way over. And you know, you know, in prison they got phones and stuff like that, and I never used the phone. I'm the pastor in the compound. You know, I'm trying to set an example. Man, I'm gonna tell you I got ten to use that phone this time. Like give me, hey, man, y'all give me a phone.
And somebody's got a contraband phone. They got a contraband phone, and you won't use it because I'm trying to do right.
I'm trying to do right and trying to show them how to do right, and they will offer it to me. Man, you know you need to check on your wife. Man, here's the phone. Man go in like, I can't do it. I can't do it, and you know, and I did. It was hard. It was hard. Then. I had a lot of favorite in prison too, and so the officers favored me. I worked in r D. That's receiving I call it. It's called receiving discharge. So when the people first come into prison, I thought it was research and development. I changed it to redeem and delivered.
Means a lot of things.
Yeah, I changed it into that, and so so I would see them come in and going out. And so the officers there favorite me. And even though they say you weren' gonna get any favor, they heard my story and they kind of favored me in that sense. And so the officer called for me, school, call home for me and found out that you know, she just didn't have no gas money to get there, she just she just.
Which which brings on a whole another set of emotions. Because there's a husband, you haven't been able to provide gas money, just.
Money, gas money when I was the sole provider for the family for years.
That makes you feel like a loser.
Oh yeah, for real, I mean with a capital hell. I mean it's just you go in and you're like, don't ever worry about coming, you know, if you don't have any gas money, don't let the option be gas money, food come to see me. No, you take that money and help your help the kids out and bless And she never worked those three and a half years, never had to work outside the home. You know what happened. Our mailbox became a money box.
Wow.
People started donating to her to pay our bills, you know, for three and a half years. With three years and then the six months. I was in the halfway house. I was able to.
Right, So you're now you're out. Business is gone. Church that you started may not be gone, but you're not pastoring it anymore.
Right.
I mean they had to move on, not that it aided you, but it hadn't move on. And you've had this experience about mentoring folks in prison and seeing them getting redemption from it. So yeah, what happens. Yeah, I'm out at this point. So I'm having this passion that was ignited in prison. Never thought. I can remember driving around.
A prison in my neighborhood and I thought, one day I'm gonna go in there and I'm going to minister. But you know, I was planning on coming home, you know, I didn't want to spend a night. So that happened, actually, and I thought, so my passion was ignited in prison, my new call, my new purpose. Now, oh I got to do this. This is a problem. And that's like a lot of entrepreneurs think. They think, Okay, if I can find a problem, I could be a solution and then there can be a difference there. They think money in that term. I'm thinking like relationship capital. Now I've really got my heart changed, and if money comes, so be it. Then I'm going to focus on helping people right now. So I volunteer for this organization called GGR, a Greater Grenet re Entry Alliance. Help to start that organization. I'm sorry say it again, Greater Grenette re Entry Alliance.
Re Entry Alliance, which is again a huge problem in our country about how do we get folks out of prison to re enter society and acclimate and not go right back into prison exactly the dreaded vision that we all have heard about it.
Yeah, seventy people go right back after three years, you got eight million.
Caught up in the system, which is five hundred percent higher than the numbers that were in the system in nineteen forty exactly five hundred percent, one hundred percent, which is a whole another conversation. But the point is there's a whole lot of folks coming in the prison system leaving back in the prison system. And what's what I call and I don't know what the word is, but I call it being institutionalized. I call it where a human being just becomes part of the institutions that house him and they just rotate in and out.
Yeah, they do they do. And it's also a society issue because I can remember, you know, I'll talk about that story when I started working for Probation in Parole. Now I'm trying to figure out, first of all, how I get a job working for the state Probation in Parole in anything?
I mean?
And uh? And so I told him, I said, with no money, with no money much, you're desperate for a job. Yeah, well, this just desperate for job. This is a this is a good paying job with benefits. Right, I got a record. How do you get a job like that? And so that's part of the problem. Yeah, And so I'm there, you know, and they actually hired me. And I'm like why they being Probation in Parole, which is the state, the state, so it's a state job, state job.
So they hire an expelling.
I'm trying to figure out, how did you hire expeller?
Right?
Well, they had a stack of applications like this for a community coordinator for one of the second largest counties in Georgia.
Right.
Governor Deal is known for re entry. He's a Republican governor, and he's known for re entry. That's his that's his brain child here in Georgia. And so he started this position with a federal grant six million dollars of a community coordinator. What is my job? My job is to go out and build resource capacities for returning citizens. Those returning citizens exofels, right. I got to build resources like jobs, housing, transportation, things of that nature, and then connect the community, so relationships. That was my job. That's what I love doing. Perfect, perfect job. How did I get it? So I'm like, so when they offered me the job, I'm thinking, do they normally I have a record? Should I tell them? Ain't gonna mess this all up? So the Lord tells me, he said, you got to be honest with him. Tell them. And so I tell the chief, the guy that said, hey, we're going to give you this job. I said, you know I got a background, right. They said, no, you don't have a background. I said. I said, oh, you to open your mouth up there, and he said, he said, no, we got the best background checking system in the world. This is probation in parole. I said, well, this is not April Food's day. And I'm telling you I got a record, man, and I and I'm going to tell my testimony. I'm not going to be ashamed of my testimony. He said, oh no, we checked that all the way up to the governor's office. We know that you don't have a record. And so I walk away from the Yeah.
He said, you don't have a record.
He said, I don't have a record because they checked that stuff.
Yeah, and we checked you all the way up. How do you not if this one have a record when you know you have a record. Well, I had to.
Find out why they couldn't find anything for real, And I'm like, so I want to check my records myself. Go all the way to the court documents. You know that judge sealed all my records. Federal judge sealed everything.
Why we talked to about it earlier, they did what he wasn't doing something nice. No, it's because the thing was so screwed up. He didn't want anybody getting into it.
He got it.
So it worked to just day that whole proceedings feels.
It's like it's done away with. If I never say anything about it, nobody would never know.
You're kidding me. And so when you were telling this dude you had a record, Yeah, I thought you were saying. He was like, yeah, but we don't consider that a record because we like you and everything else. Wasn't that. No, it's because they couldn't find that you had a record.
They couldn't. They could, They couldn't find it unless I said something. And I was going to say something because I'm using my life as a testimony to the to the guy that's been to prison, that you can do something with your life, right, And I don't need to hide that, right, And I have no reason to hide that, And I'm not ashamed the credit.
It gives you some credibility with former listeners, right.
Exactly, when I go and talk to people and I tell them I've been where they are, instant credibility. Sure, listen to everything I'm saying.
We'll be right back. M hm h.
M hmm.
All right. So you get this job, yeah, And.
So I get this job. I'm working in probation parole. These guys with guns, right, girls and guys with guns, they all around me. I got an office in the middle of them. Right. They have to do what I tell them to do. As a community coordinator. I'm setting up all these events in the city. They have to show up, do the parking, they have to do the security. This dude went to prison. They know I've been to prison, and the boss, I'm their boss. I'm over the chief in the in the in the county. And because the governor set this position up so I have governor, I can go anywhere in the state, get the keys to the state and say I'm a community coordinator from the governor's office, and they're set a meeting with anybody with me. I had to open doors to Georgia. And so when you say second chances, I tell people, I don't believe in second chances. And I paused, you don't believe in second chances. What you're in this position for it, you don't believe in second chances. I come to understand that they need better chances. You can give them a second, third, fourth, ninety times and they'll keep going to prison. Why because some of them never had a first chance. So it starts where you build what you've done with young people, preventing them to go from the first place right, giving them a hope in the first place right, because once they get in the system, it's not broken. It's fixed. That means it's going to do everything is supposed to do. And this is a business. We got to get our clients coming back and if they don't have a better chance, where society changes our mind about how we work with people come out of prison. Oh, we're not going to give them a job because they've been to prison. We're not going to give mousing. If somebody don't give me a give me an opportunity to get housing, transportation.
Well then you're probably going to do whatever you've got to do to survive.
That's first, that is what it becomes. And so that's where I made it in my commitment my ministry that I was going to stand in the gap and be a bridge to change. I'm not going to know that these things are happening and not create a job for them, not create housing, not create you know, transportation. This is all the things that we do life coaching. I knew that they need that life coach because that helped a lot in prison. So I started creating all these things when I got out, you know, to help a return citizen succeed. The program is six months to a year. Once they come in, they get jobs, they.
Start, they get jobs. Do y'all help them find jobs?
Yeah, we help them find jobs. We have an agency that's committed to going to ex offend their employers, friendly employers and building relationships with them. We go before them and say, hey, listen, there's some people behind us that you should hire. Why should I hire them? Well, they have drive, they I mean, their employment may make the difference between their freedom and not. So they're gonna You're gonna have a committed employee. Number two. We're helping to have that social support for them, transportation, coaching, mentoring. So we got relationships.
That's part of the problem. I'll hire next fellows, yeah, and I'll hire an next fellow tomorrow. In my business, I have done it. Yeah, But when the next fella has to go visitors pro officer, when the lights ain't on, when they are living in a halfway house that they're up till two, three, four o'clock at night, is hollering and screaming down the hallway, I feel for them. Yeah, But as an employer, I need folks to show up every day with a good night's rest, with the ability to feed themselves and a place to go at night. Transportation, And I can't tell you how many times I end up hiring a halfway homeless dude who has no training and is only able to show up to work sixty percent of the time, and unfortunately, my heart feels but I got a business to run, and I folks.
Like, that's unfair to you, as.
So, how do you keep that from happening?
Well, you we bring them because then I think.
That leads to recidivision, because eventually that guy can keep a job exactly, goes and still something that ends up back in jail.
That's unfair to the employer, right, So you don't think about two sides.
And the employer gets all this, the evil big employer. Yeah, no, you. Profits are a necessary measure of any business's success, and you can do all kinds of wonderful society things. But if you ain't making money, you ain't gonna do nothing for nobody exactly. And you can't make money without hard working, on time, good time employees. And even though you want to help these folks when they don't have the tools, you can't keep them in your business.
You can't. You can.
That's just the reality of it. That is, So, how do I keep your people in my business? Exactly?
How do I keep your I understand you better. I started understanding what the employer need and what they're looking for employers are in business to make money.
They have to be.
They have to be, they want to be in business.
People hearing us need to understand it's not greed. It's we answer to the bank where we get our loans. We answer to the board that's going to sit us down and grill us about why we have or have not made any money.
That's right.
We answer to the investors who expect to return on their investments. We are not being evil, greedy people by making money or businesses. We're required to and we all answer to somebody absolutely, And that's and that's this dude ain't gonna show up to work. They're gonna make that impossible for me to do. Gone. Yeah, now that sounds cold, but that's just real.
Well, the people that that we work with, the reason why they're working with us is because we try to eliminate those those obstacles right there. Right we first of all, okay, I'm gonna bring you a dude. Let's say let's say employee A and employee B. Potential employee A, potential employee B. This potential employe A is one of our people.
Right.
They come with support system, a life coach, housing, transportation, guaranteed. That's all big one. That's a big one. And and support right with a drive to work. They I mean, they have a passion and want to work. Plus they have tax incentives. You know that. You if you hire them, you get also liability insurance comes with them. Oh wow, right, the federal government will pay them, pay the employer liability, take care of their liability insurance and tax incentives, write offs. With this guy, this person on him, none of that, I mean, other than some of the stuff they provide for themselves. It's a no brainer for this employer. Let me give them a second chance. Okay, all right, longest, but in our staff and we have a staff in company. You keep them for six months and they come on my job and work and if they do well for six months, I'll hire you. Try it before you buy.
That's easy.
You didn't see, you know. Retention is a problem with employees. Haven't finding good employees and things of that nature. And this turnover what they don't like. It cost them money. It costs a lot of money to constantly be training, training, and over and over again. So we try to eliminate that problem and at the same time we help in the returning citizen.
And they got a place to go home, got a place to go home to. And so how long before your your residents? I mean you can't. They can't. They can't be residents in perpetuity. They got to move on to their own life, right, So what's there? What's their outside of our personal life plan? How do they get put back into society for real?
Yeah? But we have a financial management plan with them.
Wow?
Right, So we control their finances.
You control them, control them.
They sign over for us to control their finances. They budget the money is that they get. We give them a like a fund's request for every week that they spend on what they want to spend on. They budget, they see a life coach every week.
So you're forcing them to learn how to actually budget money and Zach at the liquor store.
At the liquor store, you follow the money, You control the addiction issues. You follow the money. You can control a lot of their bad habits.
So you mean, now they ain't getting a check and getting full in the grip of a bag of weed and other stuff. You're keeping that out of their reality.
Is while we're training them disciplines, while we're teaching them budgeting because at the while, after they save a certain amount of money, we give a little bit of money more over to them, and then they then they have to bring receipts back.
So but you're pyramidting their responsibility with money and freedom right up.
Yeah, And they said that that creates a discimine. They start liking it when they start seeing their account build up thousands of dollars they never saved any kind of money like that. I'm writing to check ten thousand, five thousand when they leave our program. And then we've already built a relationship with an employee complex, you know that that will let them come in, they buy their own houses.
And you're telling me in a a in a community of people who seventy percent end up in the national number, seventy percent fellos return to present within two years, right.
Two to three years?
Yeah, it's three years, three years, right, So seventy percent of felons return to prison within three years. You're telling me that your data points are that ninety eight percent of the people that come through your program don't return to.
Prison because it works. It works for them, it works for us, it works for society. But most people are not going to have all those wrap around services. Most people are not where.
Do some money come from for these services? For the for you to be able to house and do all this, Where does the money come from?
They pay program fees. They pay program fees after whole and like the first three months they don't have any money, right, then they start building up their account. Then they have to pay program fees and it goes back in.
So this thing is self sustaining.
Yes, I don't get grants.
Hold you're telling me this is I expected this to be a windfall of money from the government or some benefactor somewhere or something.
They don't receive it done.
Not only does this work, it's self sustaining.
Self sustaining, it pays for itself.
And how many residents do you have currently currently had?
I just lost the house because the owner repurposed a house, right, And this is why we're in the process of getting another one. We had ten in that house. We got five in the house that we in now, right, and we're going to get another house. It's going to be we're looking at a duplex. We're praying that we can get this duplex. It can be twenty people that can go into that house.
So really the scale of it is just your ability to house them because there's more that want to be in this program than you have room.
If I can, yeah, if we can get a bigger place that same success rate, we'll be there. Because the program works, it's just got to get the housing. And so that's it. I mean, we've had three houses in the past where we've had twenty thirty people that we were housed at a time.
So it's but it's definitely it's self sustaining and it as in ninety eight percent. That's right. Yep, that is an unbelievable story.
Yeah, yeah, and it's working.
We'll be right back. So, Lee, how long have you been doing this from the beginning to now?
How many years it's been since two thousand and six.
Two thousand and six, wow, sixteen years. So, I mean it's a it's a thing. Now you've got have you got a favorite success story? You have you got the story of that person that came into the program that you actually wondered if they'd ever be able to make it. You know, what's your favorite story?
My favorite story is actually has turned into a documentary.
Really, yeah, tell me about it.
Larry, Larry Williams. Larry is someone that came into our program. He did forty two years in prison.
That sounds like a murder route.
That was a murder roun and he came into our program. He's sixty sixty something years old.
Now when he comes how old was he when he came.
Out twenty two twenty one? Wow, he did forty something years and forty two years, and so he comes into our program vital science. This dude is institutional line.
He yeah, let's set that for a second, because a lot of listeners they've seen movies whatever, and they hear forty two years. And I think we get desensitized to the fact that when you're in prison, you were disassociated with culture. And so I've heard the stories of people coming out of prison, and it just is crazy that they don't even know what a cell phone is. Really, they don't even know how to use one, don't even know what that is. There are no payphones anymore that the world is. I asked a group of sixty twenty something year olds not long ago in a speech, who could name me one member of the group of people that bombed the World Trade Center and have been gone one there wasn't a single twenty year old in the room that could name one well, they could tell you anything about it. And that was on the twentieth anniversary of it. Wow. So if in twenty years, which is a generation, we can have sixty college kids that can't even tell you one thing about the most destructive thing to happen to our country since Pearl Harbor, and that collective consciousness evaporates in only twenty years, think of what society changes in forty years when you're avoid is Wow. So this cat. So what I'm saying to you is is when you hear a person comes out of prison forty two years, they're coming into a world that might as well be Mars.
Absolutely, they really are. And he came into it, you can see it in the documentary. But he came into it not knowing what a computer, what a mouse is.
Yeah, he say's a perfect example everybody about this. He thinks of mouse is a great thing out of the hole in the wall. He really doesn't understand what I'm.
Yeah, and he got frustrated. We had a mentor coaching him and showing him what a mouse is and trying to get him his Facebook set up and all this stuff on social media and getting him and he, uh, he said, I'm frustrated. I clicked this click to the right button and the left button. You know, He's like, I want to go back to prison. You know, it's it's easier. You know, I don't have to be rejected. I don't have to you know, people thinking crazy about me. I don't understand his technology.
I know where I am.
You know, you have a name in prison. They respect you in prison. They're family members. And and so I've you know, uh, him coming out. And the documentary is called First week Out, First Week Out, and uh they just uh Iron Light in that group, Uh did a great job and putting together this documentary and uh it's winning all kinds of festival awards and they just show his first week Out. It's a job. He's got housing, gets a job, he's got transportation to his job. He's doing well.
Right now.
He's right now, he's graduated from the program. He's got his own apartment, he's got his own car. You know, he's got a nice car. He's got it. It's still at the job, working, working on his retirement, playing you know, benefits and all that. And so he's he's and now he's in a documentary that's winning all kinds of awards. He goes to our church and he's he's in church, he's doing he's doing the right thing. He's mentoring young people.
How does he? How does he? I should be asking him this question, probably not you, but I'm searching for the right words to ask this question in a in a respectful way. He murdered somebody, Yeah, how does he balance this right chance and this new opportunity and this life he's starting to be able to live with the fact that he took one from somebody who won't ever have that chance? Does he do these guys once they finally get off the grip of the drugs and the life quotes and they go through a program because there's a self awakening that happens in things like this, I believe, and I think people start to look at themselves differently, and they know what they're looking at when it's them and them in the mirror. How does a guy like that balance this amazing opportunity, even this late in life, that he has, and the love he's been shown by guys like you and mentors and teachers and everything. And then he recognizes, you know, despite it all, I took a lot. I mean, do guys still struggle with that? I guess what I say.
Well, in the documentary, it addresses a lot of that guilt and shame and remorse, and even he makes the statement from all the stuff he goes through when he comes out still after he'd done forty two years, what society says he needs to pay his forty two years of his life. He said, I wonder if I'm forgiving by God. Wow, I'm not sure if I'm forgiven by him. And so there's a sense forgive yourself. How could you forgive yourself? So they still deal with these trauma. There's so much trauma goes on and mental illness that takes place by going through this time. In fact, I heard a veteran say, you get more trauma going to prison than you do fighting in the war, because there's a war there. It's a war, you know, and they see a lot of stuff that average people shouldn't see.
I mean, just nobody should see.
It's just it's traumatizing. And so he's learned to give himself. When we attach him to a family, there's a Caucasian family, this is an African American guy attached him to this older Caucasian family that fell in love with him.
Wow.
I certified the father of this family as a coach, and we try to attach them to families so they can feel like they have family. This family has taken him in, this white Caucasian family. This is an ex murderer. They're older, no children, no young beauty, and they got they got ability to help him. They take this guy to go get his car fixed, They take this guy to go get his trying to get his benefits. They're they're walking alongside of it.
And I imagine they're happy to do that if as long as he meets him halfway and keeps doing the.
Right thing exactly. And Larry is an independent kind of guy, and he doesn't like people that try to help him too much. Yeah, I get he's like, you know, that's okay. That said they want to And I told the man, Larry is not about you.
Yeah, you have to be as cheerful receivers. Yeah.
Yeah, you're helping other people, letting them help you. They feel good about helping you.
A guy like that, I hear that, and my heart breaks for anybody who wonders if God could forgive him. And I always remind myself that, you know, David took his most trusted lieutenant's wife and had an adulted her and then to save face, killed her husband and was still forgiven. And if you can do that, God can forgive you.
Yeah.
And so Larry's gonna be fine.
He's learning, he's learning that God has forgiven him.
He's gonna be fine. But that's interesting that they I would, I would carry that good with me. Yeah, I mean I would, I would carry that good with me. But the amazing thing is you take a guy who's been in jail for forty two years, exits into our society with him looks like Mars, right, and in only a few years, he's got his own place, got his own car, got a job, made friends, joined the church. Yeah, it's an amazing story.
And they love him on his job.
And that can be done all over this country.
Yes, he could. And we can change the re entry industry tremendously if we just knew how to do these things, because I think most people just think lock them up, but really they're coming back out. Ninety five percent of them coming right back out and living right next door to you, why not change that narrative and do something different. And we do that, we're going to create a better society, less victims. That's how I look at it. You got less victims, you help the people.
That's commit less tax dollars going to support prisons instead of social programs that can help us out.
You got it.
That's right, man.
Here's the thing. I got some being called ren estate, my life coaches. I certify life coaches. They take the same blueprint and they're doing it all over the country.
Yeah, that's my question. So this is an army of normal folks. And the idea here is is to tell really cool stories, not of people whose names you've heard in the news and movies and TVs, but really cool stories are just guys like you and me, just normal folks who happen to be involved and been fortunate enough to do some pretty extraordinary things. And the idea is to share those stories, right because they're uplifting and interesting. And I think we all have conflict in our lives, and the conflict of you with the guy in Tulsa, and the things we learn about ourselves who those conflicts are interesting. But the idea is that somebody's sitting in for Collins right now, here's the story and says, I could do that. You know that reaches my heart. I could do that. And your story may reach some people. Other people's story may reach others. But to me, this one seems like a no brainer. It works, it's self sufficient, and you can scale absolutely. And how does if somebody hears that and wants to do that, how do they do that? Who do they call? What do they do?
The portal to getting into this whole system is becoming a certified life coach.
That's it.
That's it. If you want to do this kind of work, you got to learn to practice, you got to learn. And when you become a certified life coach, I have something called culture preneur. That's the next level. Once you learn the skill of coaching, learn the industry, learn what we do, learn the best practices. Because I'm known as a re entry expert throughout the country, I'm teaching them all the stuff I do. I'm giving it away right literally, they have to pay for the certification. It takes some money to do that. But after that, I'm giving you the blueprint to the housing, to the transportation, to the staffing agency to how to build communities within your community.
And you're saying this is being done currently in other places right now.
In Washington, d C, LA, Texas.
Are the people doing them all ex felons or are they just some people that just want to both? Oh, So you don't necessarily have to be an ex fellow to do just somebody that cares about.
Just somebody that cares. And that's why I teach them the coach approach because you don't have to be an expert with somebody else's life to be a coach. A mentor is different, right. A coach is somebody just ask good questions. They're a good listener that goide the process.
Right.
You don't have to have had that experience because that person is an expert with their life.
Right.
All you're doing is bringing it out and let them see themselves and make better decisions, that's all. And so they take all of that and take the whole blueprint and duplicate it. That's all that. And it works throughout the whole country that way. Vital signs. Vital Signs is doing the work.
Vital signs. Yeah. So if I'm the guy in Little Rock, Arkansas and I want to start a vital signs thing in my community. You know, how do I reach out to Lee to find out? Lee, how'd you do it? And to get in touch with you? Can you share that?
Sure? Yeah, they can go to our website, Lee Robbins dot com. You spell that L E E R O B B I N S dot com. You go there. That is the portal to it all. I mean, if you want to know something about the staffing, the coaching, the transportation called uplift which means uber plus lyft, will you go to all of this? You go to that one site and it'll take you to all the other sides.
Lee. Can you imagine if every community that had a prison in it took five, let's just say it on a small level, five prisoners, five former prisoners and put them through the system, how we could change the entire face of today's recidivision rate. It would be phenomenal. Lee Robbins, it has been an absolute pleasure you And there's no doubt you are a normal dude who's been through an extraordinary life. And the work you're doing is it just furthers to advance an army of normal folks trying to do amazing things in our country and has been an honor that's been some time with you today.
Thank you so much. Just likewise, here with you and all the stuff that you've done, I'm amazed and just blessed at seeing your work and your documentary and everything you're doing for the inner City. Thank you so much.
I appreciate you, and I appreciate all of you for joining us this week. Y'all. If Pastor Lee or another guest has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by starting of vital signs in your community or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and I'm telling you I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends that are on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it, Become a premium member at normalfolks dot us. All these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.