LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Zachary Bailey comes to work at the Goodwill store on Brownsboro Road as a material handler. He sorts the items and stocks the shelves, and every day that he comes here his life is changing for the better.

"When he leaves his job at the end of the day, he can't go home," said Tom Saylor, a correctional institute training facilitator at Goodwill.

Bailey is on work release from Metro Corrections thanks to the Change for Change program at the jail. It's a direct partnership with Goodwill, an effort to effect change in people's lives and keep them out of jail. Saylor goes into LMDC and other jails across the commonwealth, giving inmates resources and skills to help them when they get out of jail.

"I'm in and out of jail a lot and just was stuck in the street life and never really attempted to get out of the cycle," Bailey said Friday.

Zachary Bailey

Zachary Bailey works at the Goodwill store on Brownsboro Road. April 14, 2023. (WDRB Photo)

"He sat in the front," Saylor said of the day he met Bailey. "He just kept coming up to me and just wanted to hear everything I had to say. So I could tell he was hungry for something different."

Jerry Collins, in reflecting recently on his first year as the director of the jail downtown, said he knew he had to get the ground running and is proud of what they've been able to accomplish so far.  

Part of that push was to introduce mental health initiatives at the jail for both officers and people housed there. Since Collins took over at the jail, his staff has created a substance abuse program, a community transition program, addiction recovery, a GED program and testing, and a partnership with Kentuckiana Works to help people between ages 18 and 24 find jobs after their release from jail.

Bailey's journey to recovery started with a realization that he had to remove the people he was surrounding himself with. But it's something he has to work for every day.

He said it's his daughter — who he hasn't seen in two years — that made him want to change.

"It's 90% my fault" he hasn't seen her, Bailey said.

And as he walks through the aisles of Goodwill, he knows he's one step closer to seeing his daughter again, taking it one day at a time as he hopes to be a better part of Louisville.

"(I want to) actually realize how it feels to be a productive member of society," Bailey said.

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