Flipping through shirts hanging on a rack, Blanca Hernandez helped Jessica Lemos pick out an outfit for an upcoming special occasion: her release from jail.
"Too Tomboyish?" Blanca asks.
"Yeah, give me something a little more girly," Jessica says.
"Oh, this is cute," Blanca says, holding up a black cardigan sweater.
Jessica's release from Santa Clara County's Elmwood Correctional Facility isn't scheduled until May, but like all women nearing release, she gets to peruse the racks and take home two full outfits, including three pairs of brand new underwear and socks.
"This is a great opportunity," says Jessica, a store employee, "because it's one less worry that I don't have to worry about, like, what am I gonna wear when I leave here?"
The Elmwood Goodwill store, which opened in October, is the only location in a correctional facility, according to a Goodwill spokesperson. And it's exclusively for women.
The program is a partnership between Goodwill of Silicon Valley and the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. Jennie Brook, rehabilitation officer for Santa Clara County, says the store has been paying dividends for inmates who work at the store.
"It's an opportunity for them to get job skills and hands-on experience that is exactly going to be useful in the same stores in the community," Brook says. "We call this a training store, really. Well, I call it that because it mirrors exactly the way that they are run in the community."
Brook says retail officials with Goodwill of Silicon Valley trained the original team of inmate workers and since then, "they follow the Goodwill protocols exactly in here."
On a recent Thursday, some of the employees were waiting for the latest round of customers to come through the door.
"They go through and they pull together outfits for them," Brook says. "It's like having a personal shopper, so I think they all really have a lot of fun with that."
The store is housed in a nondescript white cinder block room on the jail's 62-acre campus just north of San Jose. A plastic sandwich board outside the light blue steel front door advertises the store's hours.
Shoppers are immediately greeted with the smell of worn clothes that have recently been given new life with a wash in floral laundry detergent. There's a changing room at the back of the store and a cash register at the front.
Each week, employees sort through a mountain of donated merchandise, inspecting hems, seams, zippers and buttons to make sure everything is up to standard before making it onto the store's two clothing racks. At one end of the racks are backpacks available for women to take their belongings in. At the other are the packs of new socks and underwear Goodwill donates to the store.
Zaira, one of the store's employees who asked that she be identified only her first name due to concerns about her criminal history, goes through some of the brand name shoes available: Filas, Crocs, Converse, Nike Air Jordans, Vans, and yes, even some Gucci and Versace, which she can't say without laughing.
Upon her release in February, Zaira intends to use her previous retail experience and work for Goodwill's NOW program, which employs the recently incarcerated and is funded by the county and state department of corrections.
"We're actually recommended to work there and get the experience that we're [sic] needed, since it is kind of difficult to get back in the workforce after being released from jail, for having a record," she says. "It's pretty good. It's pretty nice."
Before women can get out of jail – which typically happens an average of six months after their arrest and incarceration at Elmwood – they're often released back into the world in the same clothes they came in wearing. Those clothes have been sealed in a plastic bag for months and often no longer fit them.
"It's called the walk of shame," says Monica, another Goodwill Elmwood employee who asked to be identified only by her first name given her criminal history. "We have to walk all the way to the light rail from here in our clothes [that] are either too small or too big."
Monica says Elmwood's Goodwill program offers her and other women a chance to walk out with some of their self-respect intact, something she's never been afforded during her previous releases from jail.
"I'll be able to not only get out and walk with my dignity, I'll be able to get dressed the next day with something else and go and take care of business like I'm supposed to," Monica says.
Women in the jail say the clothes they came in wearing are often dirty and serve as a reminder of a life they also may want to leave behind.
Santa Clara County Sheriff's Capt. Rita Roland helped bring the Goodwill program to Elmwood, as she wanted to create a sustainable source of clothing for women being released from jail, something she wants to soon expand out to the men housed at Elmwood.
"Being able to leave with a fresh start, it makes a difference," Roland says. "When they say clothing matters, it matters. It can have an impact on how you feel about yourself and your outlook, even on life."
At the end of her shopping trip, Jessica brought her chosen clothes to the front of the store, where Blanca rang her up on the cash register she was trained to use as part of the program.
But no money was exchanged, as everything is free, just as Jessica plans to be in a few short months.
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