Eric Jones
Community Leader
Eric is a native of Lansing, Michigan. He was the second to the youngest of a family of seven. His mother Rachel Jones, a very spiritual, strong, courageous single parent raised Eric and his siblings on the eastside of Lansing. Eric attended Lansing Eastern were he starred on the 1981 state championship basketball team, the year he also graduated. He then attended Lansing Community College for a year, before taking a job at General Motors. In 1989 he took a job as a residential counselor at Camp Highfields working with delinquent youth. This began what has been a lifetime involvement with helping at risk youth, as evidence by his Saturday morning mentoring program at Lansing Eastern where his involvement improved the grades, attendance, and behavior of over 75 youths who had been deemed a loss cause. He has been a public safety office with the Lansing School District, and has traveled across this country and abroad speaking on helping delinquent youth and curbing gang activity.
Eric is currently with the Department of Corrections as a Sergeant, and was named Corrections Office of the Year in 2006. Corrections is a challenging business. His fellow officers are often in environments and situations that can be dark, dangerous, disheartening, depressing. They must interact daily with those forgotten by society, loss to morality, and driven by negativity and hopelessness. Yet in the midst of this his colleagues and the inmates he has encountered have told him that his presence has been encouraging, his treatment fair, and his counsel proven to be correct and best on many occasions.
He also is the Program Services Director for the Jephthah Program, a GED and work skills development program at his church, which he founded and which is funded by Capital Area Michigan Works.
Besides his family, church, and devotion to helping youth, Eric is an accomplished weight lifter. He is unbeaten in three years in bench pressing, and holds State and American records in bench pressing. He has competed across the country, and was selected for the American team last year for the world games in England. He is currently in talks to turn this passionate hobby into an extended career by becoming professional.
On a personal note Eric felt his life growing up had many hardships and obstacles. Despite the poverty, his deep rooted anger at the absence of his father, and external negative influences the power of his mother’s presence keep him grounded and rooted in the right path. Throughout his life he was fortunate to have outstanding role models whose presence gave him motivation, guidance, wisdom and comfort. He feels truly humbled and grateful for the contributions these individuals had in his life, and how they taught him the power each of us can have in the lives of others.
Eric feels his life is a testimony to that famous African proverb that says “the great waterfall starts with one drop of water” This proverb expresses the power the presence of one person can have on his or her neighborhood, job, or perhaps the whole world.
