People coming home from incarceration are returning second citizens, navigating the same barriers to housing, employment and basic needs that face those who have never lived in our communities before.

I am writing to you today to ask for your compassionate help. Will you make a special year-end gift to give a returning community member and their family hope, health, safe housing and stability?

Lucia couldn’t get the clinical programming she needed to parole due to staffing shortages in our prison system, where 1 in 3 staff positions are open. As a result, she served the last day of her sentence in prison and was released with $100 and no supervision. She couldn’t get to work release to “stair step” back to the community where she could have had a job and put some money away for her reentry.

Lucia took the RISE program, one of the few programs still available in facilities for reentry preparation due to staffing issues. She has a RISE case manager and our full support, but she is struggling. She relapsed quickly upon release and has struggled to maintain employment while also navigating custody of her two children and safe housing for the three of them. If hopelessness completely overtakes her, it will only be a matter of time before she is reincarcerated, her children back in foster care.

Hundreds of neighbors like Lucia are hurting, right here in our community.

Your gift to RISE provides desperately needed reentry support both pre and post-release to people who need a fighting chance to rebuild a new life.

When you give to RISE, you’re a part of a special group.

You give intensive educational programs in seven Nebraska prisons focused on reentry planning, character development, job readiness and entrepreneurship with follow up case management services when the rubber meets the road post-release.

You give employment coaching, training and job placement in the early days of someone’s reentry.

You provide support for transitional and permanent housing, counseling services, and recovery programming.

You support family members of incarcerated people through programming that prepares them for the reentry of their loved one which leads to forgiveness, healing and restoration in families.

You ensure we don’t have to turn people away in their hour of greatest need.

I’m inspired every day by the determination, grit and resilience of the people we serve. They have done their time and need your help to turn the page. Their success is collectively everyone’s success. Their success means public safety improves, employers meet workforce needs, families and communities are restored, and generational cycles of incarceration are stopped in their tracks.

I’m also inspired everyday by you and your heart for our brothers and sisters in need. The way you show up for RISE and our Builders is humbling and the engine that keeps us going. Thank you for the empathy, time and resources you share freely. We need them now more than ever. Thanks for answering the call once again.

With gratitude for you,

Jeremy J. Bouman
CEO
RISE
jeremy@seeusrise.org | 402-981-4119

P.S. You are the difference maker for Lucia and countless others like her that will be our neighbors. They are relying on your generosity for a little help that can change everything. Please give to RISE today.

2021 RISE Annual Appeal

By RISE Academy

2021 RISE Annual Appeal

You ensure we don’t have to turn people away in their hour of greatest need.