She told herself she was only there for a job. When Jon Ponder said, “If you’re here just for a job, you can leave,” her first instinct was to stand up. But something deep inside whispered, Stay.
That small decision changed everything.
Before HOPE, Geetha’s life was chaos wrapped in survival. She grew up in a hardworking Samoan family, but the house was heavy with silence and secrets. Her father was kind when sober, cruel when drunk. Her mother left when she was young. “He was present but absent,” she said. “I knew where he was every weekend, the bar.”
By seventeen, Geetha was on her own. Independence came early, but so did loneliness. She searched for belonging in all the wrong places: men, money, and nightlife. Dancing became a way to survive. “I thought, quick money, quick escape,” she said. “But it led me down a dark road.”
At twenty-six, a close friend offered what sounded like one last way out: a credit card scheme that would “set her up” for good. Geetha ignored the sick feeling in her gut. Two days into the plan, in a Minnesota casino, police surrounded her. She was arrested with $25,000 in cash and charged in a federal case.
She spent five and a half months in custody, then three years under supervision. By the time she was released, she was pregnant and broken. Every job turned her away. “Even McDonald’s wouldn’t hire me,” she said. “I thought about ending my life. I was tired of being unwanted.”
Then someone mentioned HOPE for Prisoners.
Her probation officer told her she didn’t need another program. But she came anyway. She stayed because of a familiar face, Angela, her son’s aunt, who wrapped her in a hug and said, “Don’t leave.”
She stayed because she needed something more than a job.
HOPE gave her structure. It gave her people who believed in her when she couldn’t. She turned in every job log, followed every lead, and learned to ask one terrifying question: Are you felon-friendly? When a casino turned her down, she cried in frustration. Then the phone rang. Jon Ponder had made a call on her behalf.
She got the job.
“It was $10 an hour, vacuuming floors,” she said. “But I was proud. That floor never looked cleaner.”
That moment was the beginning of something bigger. Years later, Jon called again. He asked her to come work for HOPE as a case manager. “I told him I didn’t have the education,” she said. “He said, ‘You’re a subject matter expert.”
For six years, Geetha poured her heart into helping hundreds of men and women rebuild their lives. She stayed late, worked weekends, and gave every person her full attention and care. Her time at HOPE shaped her into the leader she is today. When she did step away from HOPE, it was because it was her turn to pour into herself and to grow.
Leaving was painful, but it came with deep gratitude for a place that helped her find her purpose and her voice.
Today, Geetha is married to a good man who works hard and stands beside her. She’s a proud mom of two boys, a little girl who’s her mirror in spirit, and a bonus son. Her faith anchors it all -God comes first, always.
She now runs her family’s business, building something of her own alongside her cousin, with the same heart she once poured into HOPE. She still calls Carolyn, her mentor and sister in faith, for guidance, and she often misses the purpose and family that helped shape her life.
“God cannot steer a parked car,” Geetha says now. “You have to move. You have to do the work. You’re worthy of good things, no matter your mistakes.”
Geetha once chased fast money and found destruction. At HOPE, she found peace, purpose, and a new kind of wealth, the kind that comes from giving back what once saved you.
