Opportunity American: "You Don't Know My Story"

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Bachelor in Paradise premieres Thursday 9, 8 central on ABC and stream on Hulu. This is our American stories and now it's time for our opportunity America series that's sponsored by Koch Industries. Today we hear the story of Gwen Boyd Willis and how Koch Industries helped her get a second chance.

Here's Robbie with the story. Gwen Boyd Willis was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. My mother's name was Gwendolyn Mitchell and my father's name was Ernest Boyd. And I lost my father at five years old.

He got killed in an automobile accident. So I was raised in a single parent house. Though life had started out a little harder than it does for most.

Gwen found that with a little hard work, she would find success. I was an all American in basketball. I was a state champion in track and field. I had a scholarship office all over, but I wasn't able to go because my mother was sickly. So I had to stay home, take care of her.

And I worked at University of West Georgia College as an assistant chef to about 2005. That's when I got in trouble. I went to the ATM machine one night with a friend of mine. And when I walked up to the ATM machine, they said, would you like another transaction? So I was like. Got money out the machine and I took the ATM card and I went shopping with the card. So maybe a month went by, some detective showed up at my door and my mom came and she was like, there's two detectives here to see you.

My stomach just dropped. You know, I was like, oh, they got me. You know, so I went to the door.

I told my mom I was going with them. So I was sitting in the back seat of the car as we was driving to the police station. And I said, Lord, do I tell the truth? And the Holy Spirit said, tell the truth. So by the time we got to the police department, before he even said anything, I said, I did it. I just I did it like that.

And I'm so glad that I listened to the Holy Spirit. And because of my honesty, I had nine charges that they had against me because of my honesty. They dropped five of my charges. And when I went to court for my charges, I went in one courtroom and they did not have enough beds. So, you know, you're supposed to go to jail right away. The judge said, well, we don't have enough beds.

So you can stay there. They allowed me to stay out of jail and turn myself in in August. So I was allowed to be out for eight months because they didn't have a bed for eight months. I was just preparing myself like, oh, I got to turn myself in in August to go do time at the women's detention center. I had to do four months, 120 days, plus the head gave me 10 years probation. So that day came and I went. And my time in the women's detention center, man, what a place. I call it the jungle. Maybe like 50 women in one room.

It's a big room with bump beds. You don't have any privacy. But I remember before I went the night before I left my grandmother. She told me, she said, Gwendolyn, you know, the real reason you're going down there.

I said, no, I don't. She said, you're going to do missionary work for the Lord. And I just, you know, just shook her off like, oh, OK, grandma. Lo and behold, exactly when I got in there, I was ministering to the women.

They had me singing all the time. One of the correctional officers, she was a very mean spirited lady, very angry, bitter. And I made her my assignment before I left there. And every day when I would pass through the line, you know, we get our food, I would speak. I would come around and say, hello, Officer so-and-so.

And I would say something nice and kind. As I started out, she wouldn't speak. Eventually, she started talking to me. She had a sick child at home. So she was dealing with that. And eventually and I was like, well, you know, I prayed for your daughter today. I was asked how her daughter was doing. Eventually, she was started. She was talking to me and people was like, wow, she talks to you? I remember the night before I left, she came and pulled me out to talk to me. And she thanked me for taking the time to talk to her. Then my time came home.

I was at home. I was like, so what am I going to do now? I got a call at the blue from this lady from Westwood College, and she was just giving me this whole talk. She was like, you want to go to school? And this, that, and the third. And I was like, I can't go to school.

I don't have any money for that. She was like, I can get you in school. So she came to the house and we did my application and everything. And I ended up going to Westwood College to major in criminal justice administration. But despite putting the work in to complete her bachelor's degree, she found that her criminal record was holding her back. Every job I applied to, they would see that, you know, I have this fabulous resume.

But when they check my background check, we'll come back with the felonies on it. And that was a lot. That was disappointment.

You know, doom and gloom. I can't tell you how many tears I cried because I was passed over from some great jobs. Even recently as last year, I applied to the Fulton County Detention Center to be a counselor there and went through the interviews. I went about two interviews and they hired me. They were just waiting for my background check to come back.

And I was honest. And I told the lady, no, hey, I have this on my record, but I'm in the process of getting my my record part. I'm waiting to hear back from the judge.

And she was like, well, we'll just wait and see. So when my record came back, she was like, we can't hire you because you have this on your record. But she did encourage me to come back and apply again once I got a pardon. So, yeah, I applied for various jobs and that having that record, having those felonies on my record, stopped me from getting hired. Gwen knew she wasn't who her record said she was. She was determined to get her record pardoned. And she went through the process twice, all on her own.

This happened back in 2005. You know, it had been sitting there all this time. I'm not that person anymore.

I'm a totally different person from back then, you know. So the first time I tried, I was gathering the paperwork. It was like trying to pull the tooth because it was like I didn't get no acknowledgment. It was like I didn't get no respect.

You know, it's like they don't it feel like they don't care when you're trying to do it on your own. I paid the monies. You got to pay all these fees. And I applied. And they said, no, I want you waiting for the six months for an answer to come back.

So I went through that twice and it came back and they was like, no. You don't meet the qualifications for a pardon. So I had talked to a friend of mine who was the Fulton County deputy sheriff. He was like, Gwen, you're going to have to get a lawyer. No doubt Gwen Willis's record did not reflect her heart, her spirit or what she could do out in the world. When we come back, more of our Opportunity America series, Gwen Willis's story here on Our American Stories. And we're back with Our American Stories and the story of Gwen Boyd Willis, part of our Opportunity America series. When we last left off, Gwen had applied for multiple jobs, but because of her criminal record, something she'd done 15 years ago, she faced rejection upon rejection.

She then tried twice on her own to get her record pardoned and was rejected twice. Here's Robbie with the rest of the story. Little did Gwen know that help would come from a very unlikely place, a pulp and paper company called Georgia Pacific.

My name is Michael Davis. I'm the assistant general counsel at Georgia Pacific, based out of Atlanta, Georgia. Koch Industries, which is, you know, the larger company of which Georgia Pacific is one part, has a fairly extensive pro bono practice. Georgia Justice was one of the groups that was identified as doing work that we were supportive of. You know, a big part of this effort was the company saying, we're okay with you taking time to go work on these pro bono efforts. Georgia Justice actually came over to the GP center. Part of what they do is to assist people who have served their time with getting getting a pardon.

So I said, that's what I'd like to do. And that's they then went over and met my client Gwen. The Georgia Justice Project, when you go for an initial interview, you go in with about 30 other people.

And they go through it's like a training course where they explain and show everything that they do to help you along with the process. But you had to be selected out of those 30 people. I was selected out of those 30 people. They chose my case. We will meet up in the conference room and before we even would get started on my case, you know, he would sit and talk to me, ask questions about me. You know, he was wanting to know how's my health and how's my family. He showed how he was really concerned. You know, it wasn't so much as, oh, we're going to jump right in here.

I'm gonna get you in and get you out. People don't have to do nothing for you, you know. And even though he was doing the pro bono, it just let me know that this man is really interested, not in just my case, but he interested in what's going on in my life. It was probably anywhere between, I'd say, 40 and 50 hours collectively.

I mean, that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's, you know, you're an hour here, an hour there. I got to know her, got her background. We were both sort of learning as we went about what needed to be done. She was, her story was absolutely fascinating. You know, she had made a mistake as a young person when she was confronted when the police came to her. She acknowledged what she'd done. She took responsibility for it. And just an amazing, amazing story about how much work she put into her education and trying to get her life back on track. She was really struggling, but she kept at it. I mean, she's just a very determined person that certainly came through in talking to her and then seeing everything that she had done. So we then began to pull together all of the documentation that was necessary for the pardon application. Gwen is so determined that it made my job very easy because I would say, Gwen, we need to have this document or that document, and she would go get it and produce it. We talked to the board, got an investigator assigned to her case.

They then conducted the investigation, and they finally got through with their investigation and let her know in August that she had, in fact, received her pardon. Man, yes, I actually went to Bible study, you know, small gathering of people. And I came home and I took my dog out that night and went to the mailbox.

I saw that it was a letter from the Georgia, state of Georgia. So I came back in the house. I was nervous.

I was like, oh, I didn't know what it was, but I still was nervous. So I sat down and I opened it. And when I opened it, I saw that it was these big old letters in black, bold letters that said pardon.

I didn't even read the paper. I just saw that I got my pardon. I just saw that.

That was it. The big bold letters and pardon. And I just sat there and I was crying. Oh, I cried.

I mean, I cried hard tears from my heart, but they were tears of joy. And, you know, as I sat there, I began to think about everything I had done, went through all the no's from jobs. I thought about just, you know, having a record, a stigma comes with it.

So people automatically look at you in a negative way. And it felt like a burden was lifted off of me, a weight was lifted off of me. I mean, I'm free. I got a new clean slate. And then I began to read what it said and just the wording of the pardon.

I mean, it's so amazing. You know, everything has been re-established back to me that was taken away from me. You know, everything has been forgiven.

You know, my record has been forgiven. And that's just, I was so elated, I was just lost for words. When I met with her here, I mean, she was, I won't say she was a changed person, but you could just tell weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

She just had, she was excited at the possibilities that were now in front of her. You don't know my story, all the changes I've been through. You don't know my pain, of what I had to endure to get here.

You don't know my struggles, don't try to figure them out. Because my worship, my worship is for real. You weren't expecting that, huh? And no, we were not expecting that. You were listening to a joyful and triumphant Gwen Willis.

People don't have to do nothing for you, Gwen said. I was forgiven. I was so elated.

I was lost of words. And then she sang that song for us. We know your struggles, Gwen. We do. And we love you for how you dealt with them and endured them and that laugh.

My goodness, we all wish we had one like that, but we can't make it up. That's real. That's you. And thank you for sharing all that you shared.

Thank you, Robbie, for the great job you did on this. Thank you to the folks at Georgia Pacific and, of course, the folks at Koch Industries. More than 65,000 people across America are employed by Koch, and there's a good chance that their work intersects with your own story in some way. The great folks at Koch make products that help improve medical devices, consumer electronics, vehicle safety, fabrics for clothing, filtration for clean water, and innovations for popular household brands.

In the process, they're creating jobs and opening paths to opportunity for everyone to create their own American story. To learn more about Koch's incredible work, go to KochIND.com. That's K-O-C-H-I-N-D dot com.

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