The Anchor - End of Year Newsletter
Thank you for being a great supporter of FailSafe-ERA. It is because of you that we have been able to serve our community’s reentry needs. This year we were able to provide support to over 130 returning citizens (formerly incarcerated). Our virtual classes went from a pilot to a Thursday-night staple with a core group and then a rotating cast of additional participants. We added volunteers to our case management team as well as our class facilitation team. Letters poured in from RRJ and from across the state seeking advice, planning for releases, or simply hoping to find a friendly ear. In the meantime, clients continue to lean on their case managers both pre-trial and post-release. The hygiene products, counseling referrals, Bonding letters, Goodwill vouchers, job leads, and all of the minutiae in between have helped most of our clients to increase their stability significantly. Some of our clients have gone above and beyond, getting promoted and even paying off their entire court fines within six months! We are very hopeful that the New Year brings us a plethora of second-chance landlords and we can get these hardworking men and women out of the expensive motel life and into the type of housing they have worked so hard to deserve.
In addition to serving the returning citizens, we are preventing generations of incarceration (PGI). Our PGI programs are designed to break the pattern of incarceration and to reduce the trauma and related challenges that families and children with incarcerated parents often face; to help them cope with the challenges brought on by the situations that they experience as they learn to cope with the effects incarceration has on them. We have increased the number of family members attending our monthly support group as they transition from shame to share. We held our first family reunification picnic where we provided backpacks of school supplies to 31 families with incarcerated loved ones; held our first brunch for 30 mothers with incarcerated loved ones; and provided a wonderful Christmas shopping experience to 44 families, totaling 90 children.
2022 Upcoming Events
January 15: WIGS (Women Inspiring GirlS) for young ladies ages 13-18
April 19: 2nd Chance Month: Criminal Justice Reform Community Forum
May 7: “A Mother’s Brunch” for mothers impacted by incarceration
May 13: Mulligan’s for Kids Golf Tournament
July 23: Backpack Drive
July 30: Family Reunification Picnic and backpack distribution
September 10: Annual Scholarship Brunch
December 15: Holiday Shoppe
Right Road Transformed and Empowered Life Skills Training and Hiring Event
March 8-10 April 4-6 Aug 9-11 Oct 3-5
Virginia Department of Correction officials estimate that more than 14,000 inmates in Virginia will be released early, effective July 1, 2022
How you can continue support our programs:
Donate to us at https://donorbox.org/donate-now-to-failsafe-era
Select FailSafe-ERA Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) Charity #77616
Select FailSafe-ERA as your charity of choice on Amazon Smile
Appreciated securities (held for more than one year) make excellent charitable gifts. Many donors find this method of giving both simple and beneficial since it provides a “double tax benefit.” If securities are held in your brokerage account, your financial advisor can transfer the securities directly to an account in the name of the charity. If the donor has possession of the physical stock certificate they wish to donate, the certificate would need to be delivered to the charity in “good delivery form.” The advantages of gifting appreciated securities include: • The donor generally receives a current income tax deduction for the full market value of the security (subject to limitations) • The charity has immediate use of the funds upon sale • The donor avoids capital gains tax on the appreciation (long-term capital gain) • Assets are immediately removed from the donor’s estate. Contact us directly at 540-479-3021 and we will be excited to share contact information with you to help you make these important gifts.
We moved our office from the Goodwill building to the Virginia Career Works building located at 10304 Spotsylvania Ave., Suite 100.
Congratulations to our volunteers of the year: Jamie Milloy, Reentry Director and Charissa McCall, Caring Connections Program Manager
We wish you a Happy New Year!!! With your support, FailSafe-ERA has increased its contribution to our community and is demonstrating its positive effect on those returning citizens and the families affected by their actions. Our team is dedicated to ensuring their success and increased public safety; and of the work still ahead to meet our goals of reentry success and prevention. In 2022, we will continue to work toward our goals and have even more successful outcomes for those we serve!
Best Wishes,
Juanita Shanks, CEO