Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Schwalbach.
Hi Eric, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up without a father for the first 12 years of my life. I got to meet him for the 1st time the summer of my 7th grade year.
He was a purple heart Vietnam Veteran who struggle with PTSD from the war and the physical abuse he suffered from his own alcoholic father. Once I was born, he left us so he did not put me through the same abuse he suffered as a child. It was tough growing up without a father, but I now realize it helped give me a passion for helping other fatherless children who were just like me. After years of struggling in school, I eventually went to college fo play football. Due to my own struggles with alcohol, I only played one year and had to come back home. After working a year in construction, I decided I wanted to go back to college so I could make more money in the construction industry with a degree. That all changed whem ai took one college elective for an easy “A”. It was an Intro to Education class that had me do volunteer hours at the local elementary school. It was a low income elementary school that was full of young fatherless boys who were just like me. I was instantly hooked on the high I got from helping other kids who struggled with the same issues that I did growing up. When they heard my story and knew I truly cared about their success, they wanted to know what they needed to do to be able to play college football like I did. I decided then that I wanted to spend the rest of my life teaching and coaching at risk low income kids who were just like me.
How I ended up in prison.
For the last 31 years, I have worked in low income high crime areas around Central Florida. I have had thousands of success stories with player in College and professional sports. However, those success stories are not what keep me awake at night. It was the students who I lost to the cemetery and penitentiary that kept me awake at night praying for solutions to help break the vicious cycle. This led to me starting a prison ministry called OUR UNSEEN SCARS! It uses testimonies of young men I lost to help others incarcerated individuals understand how self medicating to cope with Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma leads to addiction and incarceration. I was able to see through my own lived experiences with alcohol that numbing our childhood pain, never allows OUR UNSEEN SCARS to heal.
We now use written and recorded testimonies of convicts and addicts for Juveniles to hear the truth about substance use disorders.
We are working on a video series called HOPE DEALERS vs. dope dealers to TELL THE YOUTH THE TRUTH.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Growing up poor without a father meant we were constantly moving to try and find a more affordable place to live. I moved 13 times by the time I was in 9th grade. One of the places we lived was a one bedroom apartment on an area known as “Crime Hills” . I was kicked off of the junior high basketball team because I only had a 1.3. GPA. By the grace of God, I was able to raise my grades and make the varsity football team. This led to me dating a cheerleader whose family lived in wealthy area of Windermere on the Lake. They took me to a football game and the University of Florida and I was amazed at how great going to college seemed. This is when I decided I wanted to play college football.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a math teacher and coach. I have been awarded several awards by the Secretary of Education for being a HIGH IMPACT educator which means my students growth outperform 90% of the other students in the state. We are working on a program called COACHES, CONVICTS, AND COPS that uses real life testimonies from convicts and addicts to address youth drug use in middle and high schools.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Growing up poor gave me a very strong work ethic so I could earn money and own my own house on a lake like my friends who grew up in Windermere. This work ethic and my experience in the construction industry led to me buying and selling several properties that led to me accumulating the wealth I needed to buy the houses on the lake that I always dreamed about. I would spend my summers fixing up run down houses so they could be used as rental properties. As a math teacher, I learned early on that the appreciatiom off of real estate could bring me a lot of income in the future. Using the banks money to accumulate wealth was easy. I did all the work myself so labor cost were low, so when I held the house for 5 years and sold it, the profits were way more than multiple years of my teaching salary.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thegoingministry.com/our-unseen-scars
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1QfoTiuWVA/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-schwalbach-12a18a61
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/gNQp95QZjPk
- Other: https://youtu.be/D431YOBomQc
