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Jamie Weatherford ’98 speaks with a fellow employee of Crown Candy Corporation. Courtesy of Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Jamie Weatherford ’98 is a big believer in second chances. So much so, in fact, that his family’s candy company in Macon, Ga., regularly offers seasonal employment to prison inmates participating in a work-release program with the Georgia Department of Corrections.

The program, which operates through the Macon Transitional Center, has been very successful at Crown Candy Corporation, a maker of coconut bon bons, toasted macaroons and other tasty confections. About 70 percent of the inmates who have worked seasonally for Crown Candy have become permanent employees.

“We’re able to take people who need an opportunity, (let them) get a job, earn a living, and then be able to go back out in society to be somebody who can be an active and giving part of the community,” says Weatherford, the plant manager for Crown Candy, which was started 98 years ago.

For certain employees, candymaking allows them to turn their lives around.

“Coming to Crown Candy I was really given an opportunity to show the person I am, and not, you know, my past,” says one female employee. “Sometimes you have to go through things to get where you want to be, and I like where I am now.”

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Candy man Jamie Weatherford ’98 on the factory line. Courtesy of Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership.

Weatherford is the third generation of his family to work at Crown Candy. As Georgia Tech reports, the College of Charleston sociology major was named Georgia’s “Face of Manufacturing” in April by the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Check out this video of Weatherford and Crown Candy produced by the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership: