The Sanders Estes Unit is a correctional facility in Venus, TX, operated by MTC for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It is one of four facilities in the state that participates in the Prison Entrepreneurship Program or PEP. Sanders Estes is honored to be a part of PEP, which is a program that teaches values-based business skills with the end goal of providing tools, abilities, and support to enable incarcerated men to be successful once they’re released.

Recently, a PEP graduation was held at Sanders Estes. This is what some of the graduates had to say about the program and facility.

Dustin Ball

“When fully embraced, the program teaches patience during frustrations, how to choose the greater good over temporary benefit, how to determine what is actually good for us rather than what is enjoyable, how to rely on our brothers and friends for support and accountability and to live transparently with others. I think that all of the benefits can be summed up by saying that because of PEP my self-talk has shifted. No longer am I a convict, a criminal chained to my past. Now, with the help of the program, my brothers and our Executive Volunteers, I am competent, motivated, and able to succeed.”

Ricky Hagar

“This program has changed my life drastically in many different ways. I used to be selfish and self-centered and throughout this program I’ve been able to identify my flaws and work on them. PEP is not just a program that inmates take while incarcerated, yet that’s where it starts; it’s not where it ends.”

Mike Lozano

“I love being at this unit! This unit is heaven compared to where I came from. This unit is designed to give inmates the best tools at success so they don’t come back to prison. They offer more programs than any unit I have ever heard of, and that is good because that means you are actually changing lives for the better. I am honestly blessed to take an amazing program like PEP on a unit like this.”