Milton Meeks knows the difficulty ex-offenders face trying to land jobs. It’s something two of his brothers experienced firsthand in Toledo, his native home. This DeKalb County businessman believes everybody deserves a second chance, a helping hand on a path to self-sufficiency.
Even ex-convicts.
So Meeks has founded a nonprofit school to teach and train “hard-to-hire” individuals — parolees and juvenile offenders — the art of professional car care. Veterans, too. The Roosevelt School of Auto Detailing and Reconditioning in Lithonia hopes to hosts its inaugural class this fall.
“We all need a second chance,” said Meeks, owner of Lithonia Auto Transport, a car-hauling operation. “You have a lot of people who will give people chances, but there are more who won’t.”
For 16 years, Meeks knows the car detailing business, having owned and operated Meeks Auto Salon Inc. of Stone Mountain. His crews waxed, buffed and repaired dents at dealerships across metro Atlanta, among them Heritage Cadillac, Baranco Lincoln Mercury and Don Jackson Lincoln Mercury. He sold the business in 2004 but says a market for skilled car care specialists exists.
“There’s a need in the auto industry, because a lot of the older guys are getting ready to leave the industry,” he said. “We don’t want to teach them just to be detailers. We want to teach them to be ‘detail technicians’.”
Robert Davis, owner of Davis Collision Repair in Stone Mountain, has known Meeks for nearly a decade and knows his work.
“He’s got the experience and the guys to teach the skills,” Davis said. “I don’t know the details of his program, but anything that can help youth get on the right track, I’m down with that.”
So is Joe Clanton, who ran the sales department at Heritage Cadillac when Meeks had a contract to detail cars there.
“I’m very supportive of what he wants to do with the program, but I also see the business side,” he said. “It will be a tough road to get dealerships to make that kind of investment to buy into his program.”
The Roosevelt School will consist of a 10-week program in which participants will learn how to buff, wax, repair dings and interiors. Classes such as resume writing, job interviewing and entrepreneurialship will be offered as well, thanks to partnerships with various organizations. The goal: to have students graduate free of a criminal mindset, with a job in hand that might lead to a career, perhaps business ownership.
The cost of program is $5,500, an amount Meeks hopes to defray through investors, scholarships and federal grants. A golf fundraiser is scheduled for May 10 at the North Fulton Golf Course. Other events are planned throughout the year.
“I want to start off with at least 10 students,” Meeks said. “If I can save one person, I think I would have done something. We all need a second chance.”
For more information, visit http://www.schoolofautodetailing.com/.
