Thousands of people who are incarcerated in Nebraska’s county jails will have access to voting rights information this week thanks to a mass mailing organized by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and reentry organization RISE. Educational pamphlets produced by the organizations began arriving at the jails yesterday.

Christ Community Church hosted RISE CEO and founder of RISE, Jeremy Bouman; Community Navigator, Aaron Pettes; and Volunteer Relations Manager, Chantal Wentz on Sunday, July 28th for their Ordinary People, Extraordinary God series.

Research has shown that staying connected with family while incarcerated is wildly beneficial. It improves health, behavior, and can reduce the likelihood individuals will return to prison after being released.

Andy is currently taking the Business Essentials portion of RISE's In Prison Program while finishing his time at a community corrections center. He's dyslexic and has never received assistance or treatment for his learning challenges.

In 2022 we held two RISE Business Academy (RBA) cohorts and one graduation with seven graduates. 11 of our 19 program graduates currently have their businesses in operation.

Dr. TJ Dickson became the Director of the RBA in July 2022. She facilitated Cohort 5 and graduated the largest cohort thus far.

Classes begin January 18, 2023

Application deadline: January 9th, 2022

RISE founder and CEO, Jeremy Bouman, was invited to the unComfotable Conversations about Culture & Christianity podcast created by Christ Community Church.

RISE received iPads from the Bellevue Papillion Rotary Club in September as a means of case management support in the field. The flexible use and portability is essential to RISE Reentry Specialists as they work one-on-one with program participants navigating their reentry post-incarceration.

The community turned out for another successful RISE Family Wellness Collective showcase event located at the Hot Shops Art Studios, which highlighted storybooks written and illustrated by program participants during the Trauma, Grief, & Resiliency cohort and poems written during the Self-Actualization cohort.

Throughout the six- month long RISE class, both participants, facilitators, and RISE staff saw a visible change in Rosa's mindset.

RISE announced a donation of $20,000 from the Medica Foundation, a community-focused giving arm of Medica funding health initiatives across Nebraska. Medica’s funding of $20,000 goes directly to supporting RISE’s In-Prison Program and Youth & Family Program.

On Friday evening, February 4th, 60 masked people crammed into the Culxr House to listen to spoken word poems, stories and reflections from the RISE Youth & Family Program participants who had just completed a six-week session on effective communication. When we ran out of chairs people sat on the floor and stood in the back, everyone there to hold space and to truly see and hear from people that most have written off, or fear, or don't think deserve everything we all desire out of life, whatever that means.