Plymouth native Alexus Downing serves as an On-Floor Supervisor for Alight Solutions, where she helps customers transition smoothly from the working world into retirement and reap all the benefits that ought to be afforded to them.

A 2018 graduate of Plymouth High School, Downing attended Fayetteville State University where she majored in criminal justice and minored in social work.

As she explains it, her interest in the criminal justice system stems from a close familial brush with that very system.

“I decided to go into the criminal justice course because of my grandfather, who was incarcerated,” she says. “He actually just came home recently after being locked up for 20 years. It was one of the motivating reasons for me because I see a lot of people of color being locked behind bars and serving time for small things.”

As such, Downing has long been interested in the rounds of social inequality in justice system and initially sought out to learn as much as she could about that system and contribute to making it more balanced.

“I decided to major in criminal justice but I also minored in social work since I felt as though the two largely went hand-in-hand,” she recalls.

Despite her convictions, her professional path after leaving Fayetteville in 2021 would take her in a slightly different direction initially. Not long after graduating, Downing would go on to work within the prison system, something she hoped would be a stepping stone into her chosen discipline.

“After I graduated, I really want to get my foot into criminal justice so I went to work at the prison,” she recalls. “The thing is, I really didn’t like it so after about two months, I left… I never really felt like I was going to get where I wanted to be.”

Afterwards, Downing sought out a temp agency to jumpstart her career and get her working. However, like most people looking to make their way during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, opportunities were both limited and fleeting...