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CNN Heroes: Supporting those in prison and out
05:01 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

For people impacted by incarceration in the United States, Covid-19 created a new set of obstacles.

Family visitations and outside support are limited or nonexistent for those behind bars. For those released during the pandemic, an uncertain economy and reduced services – even to obtain the necessary paperwork – make re-entry a daunting and seemingly impossible task.

But three CNN Heroes are navigating pandemic barriers to continue their missions, and even launch new programs, to support those in and transitioning out of prison.

“I think prison, on its best days … you feel like you’re alone. And so to cut off all the outside things that usually come in … it makes you feel even more isolated,” said Ellen Stackable, whose non-profit, Poetic Justice, offers weekly restorative writing and creative arts programs to women who are incarcerated.

Stackable’s team was running eight in-person programs in prisons in Oklahoma and California when they closed down to visitors and volunteers. The organization acted quickly, creating a distance learning option so that women behind bars could continue to receive remote guidance and support.

“For the Oklahoma prisons, we mail the writing assignment, along with a prepaid return envelope,” said Stackable, a 2018 CNN Hero. In other prisons, volunteers can continue working with their writing partner by e-mail via a prison staff liaison.

Since March, Stackable’s group has continued all of its classes remotely, serving 85 women.

Ellen Stackable's nonprofit helps give a voice to women who are incarcerated.

The organization also provides supplies, educational materials, and letters of support to women inside, and it has teamed up with local non-profit partners to donate fabrics and sewing machines to inmates so they can make their masks.

Infection rates inside Oklahoma prisons vary greatly, from no inmate cases to 100 or more. Recently, 18 staff members at one prison tested positive for Covid-19.

In May, Stackable and other non-profits began providing meals for staff of area prisons.

“It’s a tough situation,” Stackable said. “I feel the Department of Corrections has done a really good job. I just wanted to let them know how grateful we were for them. At one prison, it was (meals for) almost 400 employees. We did it at another prison with 200 employees. And then we did it at the Tulsa jail. Now, several other non-profits are following suit.”

Stackable plans to return to in-person classes when it’s safe. But for now, the health and safety of program participants and volunteers is her primary concern.

“I’ve had so many days where I don’t feel particularly grateful in all this going on,” Stackable said. “But in the last class, before they locked down the prison, I made a pact with one of our students. We are both doing gratefulness journals … her voice is in my ear. And so, by golly, I’m writing my five things I’m grateful for.”

Returning home from incarceration

In Dallas County, where nearly one in 50 people have tested positive for Covid-19 , Richard Miles has not stopped working to provide job training and support services to those returning home from prison.

“We are an essential provider in the space of assisting people,” Miles, a 2019 CNN Hero, said of his non-profit, Miles of Freedom, whose mission is to equip, empower and employ those impacted by incarceration. Miles spent 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and started his nonprofit after getting back on his feet.

Richard Miles and his non-profit support people coming out of incarceration.

He and his team are doing a lot of virtual interviews and phone calls, working with clients to get them employment assistance. Miles says many recent parolees feel trapped.

“Coming back home, under the thickness or the uncertainty of the pandemic, increases the level of stress and anxiety,” Miles said. “The reality is that men and women are returning home from incarceration and going directly back into another place of incarceration. One of the conversations that we’re having is how do you deal with this new norm of incarceration?”

Miles of Freedom also offers financial literacy education and internet services and continues to offer employment to participants through its lawn service as well as an expanded food distribution project – a partnership with Dallas-area non-profits that feeds those in need while providing job training and skills for people coming out of incarceration.

“South Dallas is located in a food desert,” Miles said. “We’ve created this service so people that are getting out of prison and transitioning back into society can get (their) food handler’s license, learn conflict resolutions, dealing with customers, food shelf life and so forth.”

To date, they’ve distributed nearly 400,000 pounds of fresh produce to the Dallas community and provided food to more than 5,000 people.

Loving and serving the most vulnerable

In Nashville, Tennessee, 2016 CNN Hero Becca Stevens said the pandemic has only strengthened her organization’s resolve to serve survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction, many of whom have been incarcerated.

“The pandemic didn’t create the violence and vulnerability that women experience in poverty and being trafficked. It didn’t create the injustices within our penal system. But it amplified those and reminded us how the most vulnerable in our community are more susceptible to the challenges entire communities face,” said Stevens, who founded Thistle Farms.

Becca Stevens and her organization help survivors of prostitution, trafficking and addiction.

In May, her non-profit’s café, which employs 15 people, shut down but quickly shifted gears; staff stayed on to make lunches for school children and Stevens own family set up a social distancing shop of their own.

“My family and I started a front-porch pantry where we take donations on our front porch and deliver them directly to the front porches of folks who are really, really vulnerable right now,” Stevens said. “They started sharing the food with other vulnerable folks in our community; it may be an asylum-seeker, it may be somebody that had lost their job.”

Stevens estimates more than 1,500 people have been served by the endeavor and plans to continue the work as long as necessary.

Thistle Farms recently welcomed eight formerly incarcerated women looking for a new start into its residential program. And for the 30 global partners who work with the organization, Stevens sent nearly $45,000 in small grants to keep paying women who were unable to work.

“You don’t abandon people in these times. You champion people and champion each other,” Stevens said. “The most vulnerable populations, we have loved and served for more than two decades. We keep reaching out and serving the most vulnerable in our communities.”