"People would confront my parents: 'Oh your daughter's on welfare.' Now it's different."

Leilani Duarte

Leilani Duarte may have the most famous business card in the state of Wisconsin, since it was featured in Governor Tommy Thompson's campaign ads during the 1998 election.

Leilani Duarte:
People from the state of Wisconsin picked from various regions, actually from the whole state of Wisconsin with the W-2 success, and I was one of the people picked that went down to the Governor's mansion to have lunch with him.

Narrator:
It all began two years ago, when Leilani limped home to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, with her twin daughters, Jasmine and Michelle. She had divorced her abusive husband and come home flat broke in a dying car.

Leilani Duarte:
I went down to apply for welfare, which we call AFDC, my children, single parent. I went down and applied for that. They told me that they're not going to give me a check.

They said we need you to look for approximately 20 jobs per week and that I also had to put in 20 hours of, it's like community service, it's like job training they call it. They would verify if I would looked for those jobs. They would call the people.

I said if this how Tommy Thompson's program is going to help, it's not going to help me. I was very negative about it, really.

Leilani's mother:
She spent many evenings working and then going home and doing that in the evenings. She's got kids to go home to. It was tough in the beginning.

Leilani's daughter:
Now she works at Lifestyle, she is still kind of busy.

Narrator:
After several community service jobs that gave her work experience, Leilani's W-2 case worker placed her in a temp agency to do light clerical work.

After completing a computer class, Leilani is now an account coordinator full-time with the agency.

Leilani Duarte:
I'm going to be honest with you, the job that I'm working here now at Lifestyle Staffing, they hire people only with college education. I was the only one from last year that had no college education, only a high school diploma.

My old boss, he told me right out from the beginning he was skeptical of bringing a W-2er in. I said, "Why?" He goes, "Because I just didn't think you could make it." I said, "Oh, thanks Jim." He said, "Yeah, you proved me wrong." I'm glad I did.

Narrator:
Leilani acquired a special skill during her marriage to a migrant cannery worker from Mexico. Her fluent Spanish was an ability the agency valued above a college education.

Leilani Duarte:
I can translate. Anytime someone comes through the door: "Leilani, we need your help," you know.

Narrator:
When Leilani began her community service work to earn her W-2 check, her mother calculated that her daughter was making sub-minimum wage.

Leilani's mother:
Basically, that's all she maybe made, was a little over four bucks an hour.

Leilani Duarte:
She was taking the welfare check and dividing it down by hour, by day. And then, she made me look at it, looking at the $4.00 per hour. It's nothing, but a check's a check. It's still something. It pays the bills.

Leilani's mother:
She worked hard for that money, I think.

Leilani Duarte:
I mean, I've learned to talk about it, too, that I was on welfare at one time. Because at one time, I was very embarrassed of it. The less the people knew the better. I said this is not something you want to tell. Your relatives know it, you know. And gee, you don't want other people to know. They think bad about you. And people do.

When you go to the store and you pay with food stamps, the looks are very bad. People would confront my parents, too, "Oh, your daughter's on welfare." Yeah, yeah. But now they see me in commercials. It's different. "I've seen you on the commercial. Oh, she went somewhere? She didn't stay on that welfare? Oh, you've been on TV." Yeah, I was on TV.

Narrator:
The Duartes recently moved into a modest two-bedroom apartment not far from the temp agency.

Leilani Duarte:
I'm doing real well. I mean, my daughters are getting a lot more things. I see where we were and where we came from.

At one time, we didn't have nothing in the refrigerator. I said, you've got to remember that. Now they get a birthday party when it's their birthday. That year, I didn't have nothing.