SITE Helps James Boggs Get Back on Feet and Back into a Career

James Boggs pictured above in the kitchen at Saul Good in Lexington, Ky. (photo provided)

James Boggs is making progress in his recovery, and rebuilding his career has proven to be an important part of the process. 

“You know, I think I’m climbing my way back up,” Boggs says during a telephone conversation from his native Lexington, Ky., where he is currently living in an apartment and working again in the restaurant business. “I think I’m halfway there.” 

Rewind just a few months ago and the picture looked a bit different. He had just graduated from a recovery program with Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) and staying at a sober living home in Lexington. Though he was working a part-time job, he was also looking for something more financially stable, not to mention a new place to live. 

He didn’t know it at the time, but this was the point when a career re-entry program called Strategic Initiative for Transformational employment—or SITE for short—would play a vital role in helping Boggs step back onto a career path.  

An initiative of Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), SITE is a statewide program that works to bridge the gulf between recovery and productive participation in the workforce by providing eligible Kentuckians with valuable career services while actively cultivating second-chance job opportunities. 

Boggs already had a lengthy employment history, having worked in restaurant management in Tennessee before an addiction caused his career to get sidetracked. But it was while living in Lexington again that a friend mentioned the SITE program and explained that it helps individuals in recovery return to the workforce. 

It took a little convincing before he called the contact he had for the program, which turned out to be Terri Hudson, a job entry and retention support specialist with SITE who works to help individuals with vital supportive services and other assistance as they re-enter the jobs market. 

“I was skeptical at first,” Boggs says. “I told her I was looking for a better job and I told her my situation.” 

Hudson first obtained a bus pass for Boggs to help with transportation, and later helped connect the sober living house he was staying in at the time with Southland Church, which was able to donate a washer and dryer to the house and enable the residents there to take care of their laundry onsite. 

Boggs says when he started working with Hudson and the SITE program that he was more than ready for a full-time job that could help him move to a new place to live. Hudson was integral to the change, he adds, as she connected him with Rob Perez, the owner of DV8 Kitchen in Lexington, who recognized Boggs from his past work as general manager at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. 

Hudson’s introduction to Perez turned out to be an important one. Perez in turn connected him with an opportunity to move to Shepherd’s House, a different sober living home in Lexington that Boggs says was a big step up for him at the time. Perez also connected him with a full-time position at Perez’s other Lexington restaurant, Saul Good.  

While he was hired as a cook initially, Boggs’ experience meant that he would also play a role in helping ensure the kitchen met standards and ran efficiently. It was a job that he was more than ready for.  

“I automatically just started cleaning stuff up,” he says.  

About a month after Boggs started, he says Perez made the decision to sell the restaurant but helped ensure that Boggs was kept on staff during the transition in ownership. That transition turned out to be a positive one, as well, as the new owners also owned some rental properties, one of which came open and Boggs was able to move out of sober living.  

“I moved in and slowly but surely, I’m still here, I’m still working,” he says. “I’m doing really well.” 

Boggs is doing so well, in fact, that he is also developing plans to slowly reintroduce his own hot sauce brand, called Boggs Sauce, that previously was sold in grocery stores and other businesses in Nashville, and was being shipped to customers in multiple states. He’s currently making the sauce in the restaurant, and it’s even noted by the brand name on the menu. 

“It’s actually on the menu with my recipe,” he says. 

In the meantime, Boggs says the past few months have been a big step in rebuilding his career. He’s happy with his job and using his experience to help the restaurant and maintain a plan for his next steps. 

“I’m just going to keep on building,” he says.  

And while Boggs works to regain his footing and rebuild his career, he says Hudson and the SITE program helped play a pivotal role not just in helping connect with a job that led to new housing, but also some of the smaller but necessary things he needed to take his first steps back into the restaurant business. 

“I needed work pants, and she got me some work pants and shoes to work in, which I still wear today,” he says. “She helped me out with my cell phone bill, she helped me out with my rent, and just made sure that I was good. She was just there for me.” 

That support was important in not only getting back on his feet, Boggs adds, but doing so at a faster rate than he may have otherwise been able to. He enrolled for services with SITE while in sober living in April 2022, and by early September was working a full-time job and living in his own apartment. 

“I just wanted to be back out on my own doing what I do, and without alcohol,” he says. “And things have just been going steady and looking up.” 

To learn more about the services available through SITE, and how the initiative might be able to assist you or someone you know, visit www.ekcep.org/site.  

EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.