THRIVE builds community with Cummings grant
$300,000 for 10 years for re-entry support for incarcerated adults
LOWELL >> We see you. We hear you. We support you. That is the message that welcomes adults returning from incarceration in THRIVE Communities, says Chief Empowerment Officer Kim Yeasir.
“The feedback that the people inside (prison) were receiving from community was, ‘We don’t want you here. You don’t have any value to us,’” Yeasir said by phone Wednesday. “What is the role of community to change that narrative?”
THRIVE’S mission uses community-centered, restorative practices to support formerly incarcerated people, and their almost decadelong work in the field just got a big boost.
The Lowell nonprofit, now a fiscal agent of Community Teamwork Inc., was awarded $300,000 over the next 10 years by the Cummings Foundation, which aims to give back in the areas where it owns commercial property. The Woburnbased foundation was established in 1986 and has grown to be one of the largest private foundations in New England.
The $30 million Cummings grant program primarily supports Massachusetts nonprofits that are based in and serve Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties.
THRIVE will apply the grant money toward expanding its services in Greater Lowell. Its 70-plus volunteers and numerous supporters have welcomed 150 returning citizens to the community through Circles of Support and Accountability, an evidence-based restorative justice and reentry initiative made up of trained community volunteers who work with a core member who is a returning citizen/neighbor.
THRIVE has launched 32 COSAS to date. It will launch 100 more COSAS to empower 340 returning citizens through re-entry coaching.
Yeasir, who has a master’s degree in social work from Boston College, said that although she has not personally experienced incarceration, she got involved in the work after volunteering at Concord Prison for a program called Alternatives to Violence Project.
“It’s a space where you meet people behind the wall,” she said. “Meeting the men inside and hearing their stories and their experiences just changed my whole life trajectory. I couldn’t unhear the challenges that they were naming around feeling left behind and forgotten and being expected to fail. I wanted them to come home and come home well.”
Yeasir cofounded THRIVE with George Halfkenny, who has experienced incarceration, and is now trained as a peer specialist.
They founded the organization in 2014. In 2017, Cummings awarded THRIVE $25,000 a year for four years, what Yeasir calls their “little kick” to get started.
“Figuring out how to build stability and ensure that we’re going to be here for the people coming home and building that foundation for them — to have Cummings reaffirm our mission for another 10 — that’s just huge,” Yeasir said.
On Friday, the organization will host a “Vibe with THRIVE” event, which features BBQ, music, dominoes, cornhole tournaments and prizes, one of the many ways they mitigate crosscultural conflict with celebration and empowerment. The public is invited to drop in between 3 and 7 p.m., at 10 Kirk St., along the canal.
The Vibe event is also a way for THRIVE to say thank you to the community that makes their work possible.
“There’s a reason THRIVE started in Lowell and it’s because this is a community that has this great willingness and energy around collaboration,” Yeasir said.
Re-entry to a community
takes many hands, she said, and Lowell brings many hands.
“I also just want to express how honored I have been to build the THRIVE Community with our amazing staff, dedicated volunteers, board members and most of all our returning citizens who courageously share their journey — highs and lows — with their community.”
For more information on THRIVE and the “Vibe with THRIVE,” call 978483-0211.