‘Empowerment Plan’: Homeless make coats to keep off the streets of Detroit

theGRIO REPORT - The Empowerment Plan is not just helping the homeless get warm coast for the holiday, but is also employing them, enabling them to earn incomes and restart their lives.

The Empowerment Plan is not just helping the homeless get warm coats for the holiday, but is also employing them, enabling them to earn incomes and restart their lives.

Founder and CEO Veronica Scott started the Empowerment Plan, an organization that makes winter coats that turn into sleeping bags, as a class project.

“You don’t know why someone is homeless,” Scott said. “You don’t know why they ended up in the shelter. Everyone’s story is different and a lot of the time we dehumanize them.”

Scott said this winter the organization plans to make about 3,000 coats.

“They can do anything,” Scott said of the women from local shelters that work for the group. “Their ambition is limitless because they’re doing it, not just for themselves, but their family.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever felt like I belonged,” Sheronda, one of the 13 Empowerment Plan seamstresses told TODAY.

The TODAY Show teamed up with Walmart to treat the ladies and their families to everything they need for their new apartments and homes.

Follow Carrie Healey on Twitter @CarrieHeals

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