Dear friends, For the past two years I have been working as volunteer Co-Director for a new local re-entry program known as FirstFollowers. This has been a wonderful experience, joining with other formerly incarcerated people to provide support and do political mobilization around issues relating to the obstacles people face when coming home from prison. We have relied almost exclusively on volunteers (we have one half-time paid staff member) and use premises donated by a local church. I now appeal to you to lend support to our GoFundMe campaign to raise funding to continue and expand our operations. To donate click here. Please share this link. Your donation will help us to take two important steps for our program: 1. deliver a workforce development pilot course that will provide pathways for people with felony convictions into living wage jobs; your donation will cover costs of materials, staffing, instructors and stipends for students: 2. mobilize resources for opening a transition house for people coming home from prison. Apart from two very small, faith-based houses and one small house exclusively for women, there is no such transitional housing in our community. On top of this, both of the local shelters that served homeless men have closed in the past two years. There is a desperate need for housing. In addition to these programs, we will continue to run our drop-in center two days a week during which we assist people with felony convictions in searching for work, accessing education, gaining entry into treatment, and finding housing. We will also carry on with our efforts in pressing local authorities to mobilize for resources for formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones. Please support us in whatever way you can and share the news of our campaign. We are a registered 501c(3) so all donations are tax deductible. Best, James Kilgore Co-Director, FirstFollowers Research Scholar Center for African Studies University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) Author of Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time