Dear John xxxxxx,
As a quick follow-up to Sam Lewis’s first official correspondence with you as our new Executive Director (see below), I want to reiterate his thanks to our funders, allies, and dear friends.
It seems to me that gratitude fills the ARC space: gratitude for that second chance, for that opportunity for redemption, for that chance to give back to our communities—but, most of all, for our supporters, who make all of ARC’s vital work possible.
The story Sam shared with you about the turning point in his life was also documented in the acclaimed 2018 book, The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences by Ashley Nellis and Marc Mauer, Executive Director of the Sentencing Project. I encourage you to watch Sam talk about this experience himself in the accompanying Brave New Films’ Time to Come Home: 20 Years is Enough.
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Sam featured in "Time to Come Home: 20 Years is Enough," produced by Brave New Films.
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As you celebrate Independence Day tomorrow, I hope you will consider the importance of freedom, in this country as a whole, but more specifically to the formerly incarcerated men and women ARC serves with your help. They are resilient, they are ambitious, and they are determined to follow in their mentor Sam’s footsteps in working hard, achieving great successes, and helping others to make dramatic positive change in their lives and in their communities.
Much gratitude,
Patrick Sirois
Director of Development
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ARC Executive Director Sam Lewis speaking with women at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF).
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Dear John xxxxxx,
On my first day as Executive Director, I want to express my deep gratitude to all of our supporters, allies, and ARC members, who collectively fuel this strong and vital organization. I am humbled to follow in the footsteps of founder Scott Budnick and his successor Shaka Senghor, who each left a profound impact on ARC, criminal justice reform, and the communities we serve.
Today, I think of other turning points in my life, moments of transformation that led me to where I am today. The moment that catalyzed my rehabilitation and redemption occurred during my seventh year of incarceration.
My seven-year old daughter came to visit me one weekend. While I knew she would be visiting, an incident I was involved in the Thursday before sent me to administrative lockdown. My daughter had never seen me in shackles and chains and behind scarred visiting glass. She looked at me with fear in her eyes. She was not afraid for herself—she was afraid for me.
She asked me, “Daddy, why can’t I hug you? Why are you back there?”
I tried to explain to her that I had gotten in trouble, but I realized the truth was not a good answer: I was still putting the gang before those who loved me.
My daughter made one request of me: to try to stay out of trouble so that when she returned, she could hug me. The five words of “Why can’t I hug you?” shook me to the core and made me realize how much pain I had caused so many. That moment kindled my desire to change. I didn’t know how I was going to change, but I knew I wanted and needed to change.
This was the first step in my transformation, and my daughter was one of three powerful women who remained by my side through the darkest times of my life. My mother never faltered in her belief in me and my capacity for change. My wife, Rosalind, has consistently been my north star as I’ve navigated my transition back into our community.
Each year, ARC empowers hundreds of men and women to begin similar internal work on themselves. During my tenure as Director of Inside Programs, I developed the Hope and Redemption Team (HART). HART is a group of nine former life prisoners who go back inside California prisons to provide hope, to demonstrate that redemption is achievable, and to prepare participants for successful reentry into our communities.
The curriculum underpinning the HART was developed while I was inside prison serving my sentence, grown out of my desire to change and to lead others to change their lives. Whether inside or out, I have found the peer-to-peer model to be the most effective method of leading people to transformation. Since 2017, we have celebrated over 3,500 Hope and Redemption graduates and the waitlist inside prisons is 1,000 people and growing.
In addition to strengthening our inside programming, I intend to augment ARC’s work in other ways. So far, ARC has effectively innovated with a three-pronged model: leveraging our stories for policy change, providing direct services to those returning home, and giving hope and rehabilitation to those currently incarcerated. I will make sure ARC’s model includes a crucial fourth element to complement our criminal justice reform efforts: reaching youth who are at-risk of plunging further into the criminal justice system.
Every weekend, a team of ARC mentors and I visit Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Camp Scott in Saugus to provide guidance to the young people inside. I believe very passionately that we can reach these youth before they get further caught in the system. It is our lived experience and belief in the capacity of youth to grow and change that allows us to be particularly effective mentors. Furthermore, my hope is to create a mentorship network of men and women who are incarcerated, so that they are able to help steer youth away from incarceration. I have seen so many men and women who want only to give back to their communities but do not have the ability to because they are locked up. I intend to create a pipeline of mentorship that flows from inside out so as to create better communities for future generations.
In addition to this being my first day as Executive Director, it is also the first day of ARC’s fiscal year—and the first day for us to begin raising our $7 million+ goal. I would be most grateful if you would consider making as generous a gift as you can today. Your support will help us get off to a strong start in this fiscal year and fuel our efforts to begin a new era at the forefront of the social justice movement.
While I was inside prison, I only dreamed that I could help people like me. I am humbled and honored that I now have the opportunity to do so, on a scale that I couldn’t imagine. I know firsthand every ARC member’s potential for achievement and I intend to lead in ways that reinvigorate and serve community, uplift members, and reimagine a fairer criminal justice system for all.
Sincerely,
Sam Lewis
Executive Director
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