Game not over: Pioneer Human Services gives people a second chance

By ATHIMA CHANSANCHAI
P-I REPORTER

In video games, you always get a second chance. A fresh start.

It's only fitting, then, that the men and women who helped package an accessory for the popular Nintendo Wii system are those who most needed a second chance: convicted felons, the homeless, recovering addicts.


		SCOTT EKLUND / P-I
	At a warehouse in Georgetown, Leroy Woods fills boxes of the Zapper, a Nintendo Wii game accessory, with booklets and software.

At Pioneer Human Services, the motto is "Chance for Change." It's applied daily to the 13,000 or so people it has served in the past year through a massive operation that offers counseling, drug treatment programs, housing, work release, job training and employment.

"Everybody deserves a chance for change. These individuals just made a bad choice. We've all done things in our past we're not proud of," said LorieAnn Larson, spokeswoman for the 44-year-old Seattle nonprofit, which reached a high of $16 million in net worth in 2006 and achieved revenue of $63 million, also a record.

Pioneer encompasses a vast array of divisions, including catering and cafes, wholesale food distribution, institutional food services, manufacturing/sheet metal fabrications (mostly for Boeing), construction and contract packaging.

It's a business, and it's competitive enough to net customers such as Nintendo, Scientific Explorer, Boeing and Nordstrom. But it also is driven by a mission to help marginalized people. For Pioneer's staff, every day is Christmas in some small way, in how they give people hope for the future.

In an out-of-the-way warehouse in Georgetown last week, 120 Pioneer Distribution Services employees manned a fast-moving series of lines to put the finishing touches to the hot Wii accessory of the Christmas season, the Zapper. Nintendo is the division's biggest customer this time of year, charging Pioneer with packaging more than a million Zappers.

Pioneer hires extra workers to help it through the Christmas crunch. In the past it has put together Wiis and GameCubes. During the rest of the year thousands of Scientific Explorer kits are packaged and distributed, as well as Nordstrom gift boxes, Red Cross kits and Hartley Marks books. While two-thirds of the workers will leave now that the Nintendo project is done, Pioneer doesn't cut them loose completely. It tries to help them find other work.


		SCOTT EKLUND / P-I
	At the end of the line, Fabian Moyett stacks Wii boxes. Pioneer Human Services offers not only employment, but also counseling, drug treatment programs, housing, work release and job training.

For weeks, they toiled eight hours a day, five days a week in an unusual Santa's workshop, where coming to work on time for some was a huge step toward getting their lives back on track. They were paid minimum wage, but as participants in Pioneer's programs they were given housing (or paid rent at reduced rates) and discounted bus passes. Full-time permanent employees get full health benefits.

They had to pass through a metal detector at work, but that's something Nintendo requires of all its distributors. Pioneer also requires drug testing.

In a well-synchronized manner, they unsealed packages of the Zapper, stuffed software and booklets into each box and weighed the contents to specific parameters before repacking and resealing.

One worker, Vickie Silva, 36, was grateful for the do-over.

She resides at the Helen B. Ratcliff work-release facility, where the first thing she did was look up Pioneer's recruiter and tell her she needed a job. Silva picked the distribution warehouse, applying her prison experience packing powdered milk for Meals on Wheels.

Silva got 20 months for delivering methamphetamine, a sentence cut to 13 months based on good behavior. For her, a job like this was a start to a new life.

"It's given me a step closer to getting with my children," said the mother of four sons ages 8 to 12, who live with her sister. "I love it. I get off at a decent hour."

Silva's plan is to go to school in January and train to be a Spanish interpreter (her kids are half-Hispanic).

While Silva is on her way, the road to recovery for others is sometimes rough. A well-publicized raid on a work-release center run by Pioneer earlier this year yielded infractions, including cocaine possession, prohibited cell phones and allegations of inappropriate behavior by staffers. It resulted in three contract workers being fired and three resignations. Five people went back to jail.

But overall, Pioneer's recidivism rates are low; the company says 6.4 percent of its clients return to state prison vs. the statewide rate of 22.3 percent.

Lacie Parrino, 48, made it out, and stayed out. Now a customer service supervisor with Pioneer Distribution Services, she started with Pioneer in 1994 while at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, serving time for selling drugs.

The former Boeing expediter landed a job at her former company through Pioneer, and worked her way back to her old position -- all while in prison. But when she was released in 1998, her Boeing job ended and she had a hard time finding work.

"They don't give you a chance to prove yourself," Parrino said.

But Pioneer did. She does a bit of everything, from dealing with shipping and supplies to defusing tense situations, such as when workers want to know why they're not being called back to the job.

She now has her own place and has bought her first car. She bought her son a GameCube last year for Christmas.

Because she's been where they are, she likes to encourage new employees to press on.

"I like to talk to them, to tell them to stay on the right track. It takes baby steps. It may take years to come back," Parrino said. "You gotta stay away from the slippery places."