AREA PEOPLE OF NOTE

▶ The East Haven Rotary Club was still able to safely host its 19th Annual “Ben Mazzucco Clothe the Children Program” during the weekend of Jan. 15-17 at Kohl’s Department Store in Branford. Each year the Club partners with the Kohl’s Branford store in this heartwarming event, which provides much needed clothing to worthy students of the East Haven school system. This year, chairperson Barbara Brow coordinated a record 91 children, who were the beneficiaries of the opportunity to shop for items of clothing totaling $100.00 per child. Due to COVID-19 protocols, the event was spread over three days in order to minimize the number of Rotarians that needed to be present in the store each day. During the past 18 years the program has provided clothing for over 1000 children totaling well over $100,000 of merchandise.

▶ The Prison Project at Quinnipiac University has received a $364,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Prison Project aims to advance social justice through progressive, humane and empirically based solutions to crime. Since 2011, Quinnipiac has partnered with Trinity College to provide free, post-secondary education to women at York Correctional Institution. Since 2016, The Prison Project has sponsored the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program for men at the Garner and Robinson correctional institutions and, more recently, to women at York Correctional Institution. Inside-Out allows on-campus students to learn alongside incarcerated students. The Prison Project also offers post-secondary classes in sociology and criminal justice to men at Garner Correctional Institution. In addition, The Prison Project offers seminars, presentations and programs based on the idea that reforming punishment practices in the United States requires a communion of activists, scholars, students and teachers.