Kevin Lynch runs a 25-year-old St. Paul-based business that makes no profit and has an annual worker turnover rate of about 400 percent. His Rebuild Resources Inc., says St. Paul Pioneer Press columnist Ruben Rosario, provides services and jobs for people in recovery, particularly ex-offenders returning to the community. About 68 percent of nearly 1,000 graduates since 1984 landed permanent jobs over the years.
The firm helped place 28 people, 56 percent of 2008's program graduates, in permanent jobs in the midst of the nation's deepest recession since the Great Depression. Only two graduates, 3.5 percent of the total, went back to jail. Meanwhile, the nonprofit's revenue grew from $747,260 in 2006 to $1.4 million in 2008 on the business side, along with $600,000 in philanthropic funds raised that year to help finance programs.
