OIC of South Florida's summit focused on building, elevating and sustaining the middle class

MIAMI – Wednesday was day one of the Middle Class Summit at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The theme: Building, elevating and sustaining the middle class.

Event organizers told CBS4 that a big part of that means helping people get good jobs.

"A job is about so much more than income. It's about prosperity. It's about elevating people. It's also about leaving a legacy for your children. That you are modeling a behavior that eradicates vicious cycles of poverty," said Newton Sanon, the president and CEO of OIC South Florida. 

The nonprofit group OIC of South Florida is hosting the summit. It's a community-based workforce development organization.

"One of our panels is the criminal justice reform panel. Literally today, we are going leverage our money from the US Department of Labor working with the state attorney's office, and the public defender's office. That's in lieu of incarceration for non-violent offenders, they can come to OIC, get a vocational certification and get training and come into a job, and really help eradicate these vicious cycles of incarceration and poverty that plague so many of our communities," said Sanon.

The Seminole Tribe has been the prime sponsor of the OIC. The chairman told CBS4 why he feels events like this one are so important.

"We are building for the future. These individuals that we are training or reentering into the workforce and giving life skills to those individuals so they can take care of themselves or their parents, or possibly their children or grandchildren moving forward. So, this is monumental," said Seminole Tribe Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr.

The group helps teen mothers, people who are trying to rebuild their lives after incarceration and anyone who wants to break the cycle of poverty by getting a good job.

CBS4 is a supporter of this initiative. For more information on the OIC of South Florida and its programs or the summit, click here.