Chattanooga Endeavors

Next Tuesday, we’re launching an important new component of our response to a rapidly changing reentry landscape: the Second Chances Employer Academy.

For more than 35 years, Chattanooga Endeavors has helped individuals overcome barriers after incarceration. Now, we’re bringing that experience directly to employers—those who need dependable, high-performing talent and a hiring strategy that works in the real world.

This inaugural training is the first step in a broader, employer-driven approach designed to align business needs with a capable—and often overlooked—talent pool.

At the core, we believe second chance hiring only works when it works for the employer. Our approach is practical and disciplined—focused on retention, performance, and building a reliable workforce pipeline without turning your operation into a social service program.

This cornerstone training will be followed by additional sessions that dive deeper into specific elements of successful second chance employment to support long-term success.

Watch for a dedicated page for the Academy soon, but for now, you can learn more and register here:
https://chattanoogaendeavors.org/academy

Employer Academy | Chattanooga Endeavors Second Chances Employer Academy Building Business Value Through Purposeful Second Chances. REGISTER TO ATTEND Find us Here Chambliss, Bahner, & Stophel, P.C. 605 Chestnut St.Chattanooga, TN 37450 Get In touch David Chalker+1 202 [email protected] Schedule Tuesday, May 5, 2026...

We were just given an extra table at this event. If you would like to join us in honoring Ardena Garth Hicks, please DM me.

World Gratitude Day Card Drive We're pleased to show off the Chattanooga branded cards that we've designed for our Card Drives. The act of writing someone in prison is meaningful in itself. The purpose of including an image of Chattanooga is to emphasize that their hometown has not abandoned them and that second chances are on offer here. Hope to see you tomorrow at Edley's Bar-B-Que for this quarter's Card Drive. 11:30 AM. More Info at https://www.facebook.com/events/1774264889858813

It is hard to imagine that we would have had much success with Dismas House in our early years if not for Carl Labbe.

He was not only incredibly generous with his time and resources, but he had an extremely wide and active network of friends and colleagues (as you might guess from the number of organizations that he was helpful with listed in this obit) -- who he never hesitated to call on for help.

He was also an effective mentor who we all looked up to.

He will be missed there is no doubt. But there is also no doubt that his legacy will live on quietly in the hundreds of people who found a fresh start after prison in the community kindness and support they received at Dismas House -- and the thousands more who we were only able to help at Chattanooga Endeavors because first there was Dismas House.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through Your mercy, rest in peace. Amen.

[PS-The image is of Carl giving a punctuation lesson at a Dismas House board retreat. If you knew him well, you know what a comma sounds like.]

https://www.timesfreepress.com/obituaries/2025/jul/31/carl-anthony-labbe-jr-528149/

It’s hard to not feel rattled when reading about the legal wranglings over deactivating a death row inmate’s heart device in order to carry out his death sentence.

Byron Black is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee. The state says the hospital agreed to turn off his defibrillator. The hospital says it didn’t. Now lawyers are arguing over emails and timelines, and the real issue gets lost in procedural confusion.

From the outside, it all seems surreal. But then again, I have yet to hear a good argument in support of state killing.

Hospital says it never agreed to deactivate inmate's heart device before ex*****on NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee hospital says it never agreed to a request by state officials who face a court order to turn off a death row inmate's

Every few months, our volunteers gather for lunch to sign cards for people serving time in Tennessee prisons. We thought of it as a simple way to connect those who are incarcerated with members of their community. We hoped it would have an impact—but we were amazed when one card actually saved someone’s life.

It reminded us how much of our work begins in the community and with our volunteers.

If you’d like to read about the impact of just a couple of cards, check out our short blog post: https://bit.ly/3GPL6ep

And don’t forget to join us for our next lunch on August 15th at 11:30 a.m. for the World Gratitude Day Card Drive! Details are pinned on our page.

Join Us at the Table. | Notion If you’ve written a card during one of our recent events—or walked with us on a prison tour—you’ve already helped open the door to a second chance.

Do you know any incarcerated scholars or alumni of prison educational programs? Proposals for presentations are being accepted for Alliance for Higher Education in Prison's Second Incarcerated Scholars Conference which will take place online Oct 21-22.

✨📢 ISC Call for Proposals

We are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting proposals for the second annual Incarcerated Scholars Conference (ISC), happening virtually on October 21-22, 2025. This year's theme is "Pathways to Possibility."

We will be accepting Presentation Proposals and Creative Submissions for this year's conference.

🎓 Anyone who is currently incarcerated and enrolled as a student or an alum of a prison education program can submit a Presentation Proposal. Presenters (even those self-submitting) should also be prepared to identify a proxy, who must be affiliated with an educational program currently in operation in the prison.

🎨 All currently incarcerated artists (regardless of their educational affiliation or enrollment) are welcome to complete a Creative Submission.

📝 Deadline: July 16

More information — including the submission instructions, presentation tracks, and eligibility requirements — can be found on our website: https://bit.ly/3XZP5KG

Here's a nice feature by Chattanooga Times Free Press' Bob Garry on Endeavors for its Edge Magazine.

Joshua Smith served five years in federal prison—but that wasn’t the end of his story. After his release, he built a successful business in East Tennessee, but he didn’t stop there.

Determined to give others the second chance he found, he founded the Fourth Purpose Foundation in Knoxville.

In 2019, he was appointed to Governor Bill Lee’s Criminal Justice Task Force where he brought his firsthand experience to the table and helped rewrite sentencing code and expand alternatives to incarceration. Despite the Task Force's efforts, the 2022 truth-in-sentencing laws mandating 85–100% served for certain offenses still passed. Those laws—requiring longer time served without parole—have drawn criticism for making incarceration tougher without clear public safety benefits.

Now, Smith been named Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons—the first person ever to hold that post with a record of incarceration. From a prison cell to federal leadership, Joshua Smith is bringing his personal reentry lessons to the national stage.

Could change be knocking at a federal level.

Tennessee prison reform advocate is first ex-inmate named to US prisons bureau leadership A Tennessee businessman and former inmate is now second in command of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

More unrest at Trousdale prison. This one involving hostages and requiring a multi-agency response.

Sheriff says riot in Tennessee prison is contained, inmates back in cells Unrest in a prison northeast of Nashville has been contained, the sheriff says, and all prisoners returned to their cells after officers sprayed chemical agents into the prison yard.