When I committed a crime.
I was 16 years old.
I was still a child.
When I got released from prison, my state of mind
was just simply I was going to go get a job.
You have that box and that question asks you,
"Have you ever been convicted of a felony
offense?" And once I seen that, I just lost all
hope. I didn't know the collateral consequences
that I was going to face having a felony conviction
attached to my name.
When I got tired of those doors closing in my face,
I just seeked out other ways and cleaning was the
one of the things that kept me calm.
It kept me at peace.
My name is Marquis Mckenzie.
I'm 32 years old and I'm from Orlando, Florida.
Last year, I made over $150,000.
So between my income with The Dirt Master and
Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, I
support my spouse and my three kids between those
different two incomes.
I'm doing about 70 to 80 hours a week.
FRRC sometimes can go well over 40 hours just
because of the commitment that I am to the
organization. And then with The Dirt master, it
can go anywhere from 30 to 40 hours or more,
depending on if we have projects that come up.
So growing up, I was very almost independent.
I was one of those kids that wanted to be the
class clown, wanted to be fun and wanted to be
known. But I caused a lot of bad energy to come my
way. And I would say about the age of 15, I
just decided to give up, drop out of high school
and make my own decisions. I hung around a
lot of people that was older than me and I felt
like I had a point to prove.
I thought because I didn't have any criminal
record, that was my first offense that I was going
to get released. When I went to court, I found
myself being told that my case can no longer be seen
by the juvenile justice system, and that it's
going to be turned over to the adult system.
And the only thing I can remember is my mom crying
in the courtroom and begging the judge to
please, you know, saying, give me a second chance.
And the only thing that the judge would say is
that I'm sorry, this case is out of my hands.
I went out and made a mistake and I should have
been held accountable for my actions.
I just don't think I should have been held
accountable as an adult.
When I got sentenced, I believe I was 17 years
old.
Out of 24 months.
I only had to do eight months in prison.
It was a very crazy experience and at some
points it was very stressful. But every time
I cleaned despite that, I was cleaning the dirtiest
thing inside of the jails. And jails are
dirty. It just made me feel that peace, right?
It made me forget about my court date.
It made me forget about the time that I was
facing. I kind of made the comparison,
when you change your life, when you clean your life
up, you feel good.
Same thing. When you clean something physical,
you just feel good about your house.
You just feel at peace.
My mom, you know, she was very hard on us about
cleaning. And be honest, I said, I hate it.
I just never knew how that was going to change
my life. So I figured that I found my niche
right then and there. And I knew from that point
that I want to start a cleaning business.
So when I talk about my lifestyle and my expenses
that I take care of, including my family as
well, which is my three kids, and then a lot of
stuff that I do for the community, and then also
running a small business, I'm just be transparent.
It's been very hard to even try to think about
saving.
So in my 401(k), I currently have just under
$3,000 in that savings account.
The total that we're paying for our apartment
is roughly close to $1,800 dollars a month.
My phone bills, we have it in our business name.
We have about seven lines on that account, including
smartwatches. It fluctuates between $700
and close to $800 a month for our cell phone bills.
A lot of my expenses go towards food, and that's
either buying groceries for the house or because I
want to move every day just honestly eating out.
So on an average day, if I eat breakfast, lunch and
dinner out, I could spend close to $100 a day on
food if I don't decide to eat at home.
When I got released, that was the same year that I
was supposed to walk across the stage.
A lot of people that I grew up with was going to
be graduating and I was just going to be coming
home from prison.
So I never finished college. I just dropped
out. It can be very difficult if you don't
have that family support or you don't have someone
who believes in second chances that's willing to
give you an opportunity. It could be very hard for
you to transition and get back into society and be a
productive citizen.
That really kind of pushed me to the edge.
And when I was told that I couldn't get that actual
promotion, I look to becoming an entrepreneur.
We give second chances to individuals.
Matter of fact, one of the ways that can get you
hired with The Dirt Master is having a felony
offense. Now, I'm not encouraging anyone to go
out and get a felony offense to get a job with
us, but that's one of the things that we look at
before we hire an individual.
Have you been through the system? And we're able to
relate. My spouse name is
Sharnisha Ousley. She is one of two sole owners of
The Dirt Master and also one of the full-time
employees with The Dirt Master as well.
Almost 80%, I want to say 90% of our staff either
have a felony conviction or been incarcerated.
We try to be an organization that's for us
and led by us and being able to compare and give
opportunities to many of us who's coming through
our doors.
One of my long term goals was to purchase properties
and will rent to returning citizens.
And this room here is very special to me because
this was my room growing up and I spent a lot of
time in this room.
You can see the walls are painted.
When I purchased the house, it was for
$222,000. So my mortgage on that house is currently
$1,300 dollars.
Now we have the property and we're trying to turn
it into a transitional house where we actually
give opportunities to guys, women or youth
coming out of incarceration system to be
able to have a place to live.
I know a lot of returning citizens who need an
opportunity just to have a safe place to lay their
head so they can think about the next day and the
opportunities that they can probably take
advantage of. But if they don't have a proper place
to shower, a proper place to eat, or just to be at
peace trying to be a productive citizen, it's
the last thing that's on their mind.
If we want to reduce having victims in our
communities, we have to think about giving
opportunities to those who are coming out of the
criminal justice system so they don't go back out
and commit more crimes and create more victims.
So in the next 5 to 10 years, my goal is to be
the youngest philanthropist in the
state of Florida. So of course I will have to
acquire a lot of wealth so I can give back to many
others in the community.
I want to make sure that my kids, if they decide to
go to college or they decide to be an
entrepreneur, that they have an easy financial
success path for them.
I want to be able to say I own multiple properties
across the state of Florida. And then the
biggest thing, of course, I want to continue to
build and expand the dirt master.
So within the next two, five, ten years, I plan on
being a corporation where we can actually franchise
our model out to returning citizens across
the state of Florida and many other states as well.
If we want to create a better and just society
and impact our communities, we have to
pick up those who are the most weakest.
And when you talk about the state of Florida, the
ones who are most weakest in the community are the
ones who are most likely been incarcerated or have
a felony offense.
And if we're not picking those people up, how can
we thrive in our communities? I'm very
hopeful that the criminal justice system is actually
going to be way better and create more
opportunities for individuals right there in
the system alone. Your past does not define your
future. What you did in the past shouldn't hold
you back from trying to be successful in the
future or should stop you from being a productive
citizen.