“I act cool, but I’m scared.” Being in Community.
“I am an abuse survivor.” Keith is reading the words written on the picture of a blank face off the crumbled up piece of paper he just picked up off the floor.
21 men are sitting in a circle in the big room at Sozo Coffeehouse in downtown Omaha where Randall leads a monthly men’s wellness coffee.
Randall is a Family Program Associate at RISE and he is facilitating a discussion about the masks we wear that the world sees and what’s behind the mask. The paper has a blank face on each side; on one side the men write words that describe the masks they wear and on the other side they write their true feelings and what stays hidden behind the mask. They crumble the papers up and throw them in the middle of the circle, each man grabbing one of the papers that isn’t theirs and opens it up.
The men go around the room reading the words and phrases on both sides of the sheet they picked up. Mike reads, “Fear and anxiety, I’m not good enough, I’m a fuck up. I act cool ,but I’m scared.” Adam reads, “Tough, confident, proud. But I’m not these things for real.”
Men are nodding their heads. Many of them are still at work release and came over for the morning meeting on the RISE van driven by the Director of the RISE Youth and Family Program Geri Knight.
“I’m in recovery, been clean for a year and a half, but AA wasn’t the right spot for me. Being in this community with you all, that’s my sobriety” says Hector.
Randall encourages the men to stay connected to the community and the supports that RISE provides. “Reentry is crisis but you don’t have to do it alone. We can help each other to make it through,” he says.
Randall was incarcerated at 17 years old and served 22 years in prison—his entire adult life. He graduated the RISE in-prison program and then stayed on with the program as a peer facilitator for a few years before he was moved. When he made it to work release, he started attending the RISE Family Program with his partner and her son; they attended the program for a year and both graduated together.
Now he’s working at RISE and helping to lead the program that made a big impact on his transition home. He’s been back in the community for two years.
“I know what it’s like because I’m still going through it myself. You can do it but you need to stay in the present and where we are together right now. Don’t let your past define you or chase your future too much.”
Hector’s family moved from Argentina to El Salvador right after he was born. His father was a soldier and died during the Salvadoran Civil War. When he was 11 months old, his mother dropped him and his sister off at the neighbor’s house and fled the country. The neighbors raised him as their own. He excelled at soccer in school and earned a spot on the Salvadoran National Team where he got to play matches throughout Central America and South America. After his sister was murdered by her partner, he came to the United States in search of his birth mother. He found her living in Omaha and at 19 became a US Citizen.
Hector didn’t speak any English when he came to the US.
“I watched movies like ‘The Wedding Crashers’ as my language school. I would watch a scene in English, rewind it and put the Spanish subtitles on to watch the scene again and learned how to speak English that way. My friends would ask me why I kept watching that movie and I would tell them I’m studying!”
His relationship with his mother is complicated but they are both working on it. Hector is 36 now and has a wife and two little girls. He is in the middle of a two-year sentence and is hopeful about his future knowing his sobriety is the key. He’s worked as a butcher for years and RISE is helping him get a meat department position at a local store while he’s at work release. He coaches soccer in his spare time.
The monthly sessions allow the men to relax, be vulnerable, learn from one another and grow in their confidence knowing the steps will be difficult but they won’t be alone on the journey. Coffee and fellowship fosters community, and when the community is strong and the bonds are deep the breakthroughs and successes transcend what any one of us can do on our own. Each man knows that their peers and RISE will be there, every step of the way.
The Men’s Wellness Coffee has grown significantly since Randall started it last spring.
We’re looking for a company or someone to sponsor this group’s activities so we can sustain this new initiative. Sponsorship will allow us to keep buying these guys a coffee drink and add another facilitator to accommodate the program portion of the sessions based on the growing number of attendees. If you’re interested in sponsoring the Men’s Wellness Coffee please shoot me a note below!
