Gerald Whitehead

“My days are always cool,” says Gerald Whitehead about his job with Sweet Beginnings, LLC.  He works with the bees, he mixes personal care products, and he has an hour or two a day for his studies. “I like everything about working here.”

The bees are hibernating for the winter, so the winter work is filling honey orders from stored product and making lip balm, body polisher and moisturizer. Gerald explains how to mix the products: “It’s like when you’re baking a cake. You have to add so many different ingredients into each product…. We might have to melt down the eucalyptus, add the vitamin E and the scent, and then mix it up and put it in the containers. Some products you have to wait to get solid.”  Then he adds the labels and they are ready to go.

In the spring he’ll get back to caring for the bees and extracting honey, “the bees do all the work for the honey,” Gerald explains, he just has to harvest and package it.

Gerald grew up in North Lawndale.  The way he sees it, “My parents weren’t ready for me.” He dropped out of school in the 6th grade because he had to raise himself.  In and out of prison since he was 17 years old, at age 49 Gerald had had enough.  “I was good at gangbanging, but it kept me in and out of jail.  But all the time, “I always had this person inside that I felt like got lost.  That really wanted something better…”

He completed the U-Turn Permitted program and started to volunteer at NLEN. “I really didn’t have anything else to do…They really liked how I worked with the bees.  I just pitched in, no problem.”  Then several months ago, Sweet Beginnings, LLC hired him.

While with Sweet Beginnings, LLC, Gerald is focusing on his education and working towards his GED.  He is learning to read better: “I can read things I couldn’t before.”  Before, “My pride stayed in my way.  I didn’t want to tell anybody I couldn’t read and write.”  At NLEN, “they made me comfortable enough – how they treated me, how they talked to me – so I could deal with my issues.  My biggest issue was lack of education.”  He enjoys exploring the Internet and recently got a library card, so he can “find out what I like to read.”  Gerald believes these activities are opening up a new world of opportunities, not only for employment, but also to learn about himself.

Gerald is not sure what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He believes he has to “reach a certain level” in his education before he can even know his interests and options.  “Maybe my calling might be to help people like me.”

“The more I educate myself, then I’ll find my purpose.”