eKART Gives Hope to Floyd Countian Matt Kidd after Struggling to Stay on the Right Track after Overcoming Addiction

Floyd Countian and former addict Matt Kidd says eKART helped bring hope back to his future by giving him a fighting chance in the job market.

Hope, for many, has been the key to their success. Without it, there would have been no reason to keep trying even when things seemed to be falling apart around them. For one Floyd Countian, after years of struggle with substance use issues a new initiative in his region brought hope back to his life and for his future.

“I had been a drug addict for about 21 years, and had been clean at the time for around two and a half to three years,” Matt Kidd explains, voice crackling over the speaker as he talks during a socially distanced phone interview. “I had just moved back home from Danville, back to Eastern Kentucky. Me and my wife were wanting to go to work somewhere that we could help addicts, maybe even give them hope.”

The search for a job in Eastern Kentucky has proven difficult even for those with a good résumé and background on their side—for Kidd, who had at least one incarceration for drug trafficking under his belt during his 21 years battling addiction, it was next to impossible.

“I was just out of luck. I could work construction or I could go back to my old ways, and there really wasn’t any hope in it,” he explains. “You just, you never moved forward. Every step forward was two steps back.”

In 2019, Kidd heard about a new program in the region that aimed to help former addicts get back on their feet with job trainings and placements. eKART (Eastern Kentucky Addiction Recovery and Training) is an initiative of Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), Inc., that works with local drug courts and other agencies to bridge the gulf between recovery and productive participation in the workforce by providing individuals with valuable career, training, and supportive services, while actively cultivating transformational job opportunities.  

“I can remember so many times that I would get out of jail or rehab or prison and be like, OK, I’m going to do it this time, I’m going to get me a job. I’m going to do everything right, and then you put in 14 or 15 job applications and don’t hear anything back,” Kidd says. “We’re creatures of habit and we’d fall right back into those old ways.

“With eKART, [they] have identified that problem up front,” he adds. 

Kidd was referred to eKART Success Coach Jimmie Wilson, who explained what the program entailed and what it could do for him.

“I have some college and I have a great work history despite the fact that I was a drug addict and I couldn’t even get a call back. You know, I could have got a call maybe at a restaurant or something making minimum wage but we all know that you can’t live off of that,” Kidd says. “When me and Jimmie talked that day, it all happened pretty quick.”

Within the week, Kidd received a call from Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) to discuss available job opportunities for him. Working alongside Wilson, he explains, he was able to secure a position as a community liaison with ARC to help addicts, and their families, who are going through the court system get into a treatment facility to become sober.

“Jimmie told me, she said when you first get started working with them, you’re not going to get paid immediately because they’ll hold your check for a week or so, so let me know if you need any help with gas or anything like that,” Kidd says.

Kidd explains that originally, he was only set to work with clients in Floyd County, where he lives, but quickly his job expanded to include clients in Knott, Magoffin, Johnson, and Floyd counties. Though he loved his job, this added travel expense was not something he was expecting. 

“I said, I’m struggling with gas. She said she would take care of it,” he says, explaining that he thought he would get around $20 in gas or so to help fill up his tank. “I got $120 of gas and that was—it couldn’t have been more perfect. I mean the timing was perfect and it absolutely helped get me through and relieved a lot of anxiety and stress and it allowed me to move forward.”

Since working with eKART and reaping the benefits of the program, Kidd says he has been an advocate of the initiative with clients he works with now with ARC.

“I tell every single judge, every single treatment center, every out-patient center [about eKART],” he says. “We had a girl that had a substance abuse disorder and she was behind on her child support and they were going to lock her up.”

Kidd says he pitched the idea of instead of locking her up—which would benefit no one in the situation—to see if she qualified for eKART to get her into job training.

“That way she can have income coming in, she can put that towards her child support, and she will be well on her way to getting a job,” Kidd explains. “A lot of the judges have liked that, a lot of them have went with it. A lot of judges are happy about it.”

Along with his newfound career successes, Kidd has also found success in assisting other substance use programs in the region, including the HEALing (Helping End Addiction Long Term) Communities Study with the University of Kentucky, a four-year $87 million study aimed at reducing opioid use and overdoses.

“Here I am a 21-year drug addict, been incarcerated several times, and I’m on the board as a community champion for that study,” he says. “I’m the only person on that board that doesn’t have a college degree, but they value my input because I’ve been able to turn my life around with the help of different facilities, different programs, and especially eKART.”

“It’s just surreal. I still can’t believe it,” he adds.

Kidd says everyone who is or has been in his position in the past knows that even the smallest bit of hope can get you through. eKART has been that hope for him.

“If it can help me, there’s so many people out there that they just need a little nudge of hope and eKART has identified a lot of the problems that push us down instead of pick us up,” Kidd says. “I couldn’t be more thankful and appreciative and blessed to have not only found out about this program, but, I mean, I’m a success story to this program. I’m something that can be looked at as this is what can happen when we work together.” 

“For too long we’ve tried to punish and push down and, for me, eKART is a sign of hope and I can’t wait to see what the future holds,” he adds.

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.