A company built on a second chance
Pelipost was founded on a second chance. About one in three American adults has a criminal record, and that record can limit access to education, jobs, and housing. Each April, Pelipost partners with Prison Fellowship for Second Chance Month to create opportunity for people coming home. In that spirit, our Co-Founder and COO Becky Calderon shared her story.
How your second chance story started
Becky is direct about it: her incarceration itself was the opening. "I feel extremely blessed, extremely lucky that I had this opportunity that so many people don't have."
The opportunity came from her son, who kept hearing her say how much photos meant to her while she was inside, and who kept running into roadblocks trying to send them. "You know what, there's a need for this because it's taking me too much hassle to send my mom pictures." Pelipost came out of that conversation.
Were you prepared to reenter society?
Not entirely. But Becky had the one thing that makes the biggest difference: "The one thing that I did know was that I had family. That in itself is a blessing."
She names what a lot of people never say out loud: "You're almost scared to be free. Because on the inside, you know where you're sleeping, you know where you're eating. Then you get out, and you have no idea."
The weight of stigma after release
Becky is her own hardest critic. She came home while her father was developing Alzheimer's and stepped into caregiving beside her mother instead of jumping back into work. "I felt that I lost all my credibility. And I still feel that in ways. All of the sudden I was at the top of my career, and I went so far down."
Family was the key
Ask her if family unlocked her second chance and the answer is instant: "Absolutely. 100 percent." Her son never wavered. Her mother wrote constantly, held firm boundaries, and still made it clear she was loved. Her father, on the phone, could barely contain how much he wanted her home.
"Family for me was the number one motivator. It's what kept me trying." And trying, she says, is the whole game. The mountain of proving you deserve a second chance feels impossible alone.
If you don't have that support
Becky names the guilt that comes with being one of the lucky ones. "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of failing is because you're alone." For anyone without a family safety net, she points to advocacy organizations, reentry programs, and community groups as the next best thing. And then: "All you have to do is try."
Learn more about Second Chance Month at Prison Fellowship.