ACTION ALERT: Tell the Legislature Nebraskans reentering society should not be denied food benefits for life.

During my weekly “letter time” where I close my office door to dive into mail received from our incarcerated people, a neatly written envelope with a pink letter folded inside caught my attention.

Scrolled at the top in cursive letters I read,“Please don’t give up on me.”

At RISE, we celebrate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and celebrate Women’s History Month during the month of March. Women’s History Month was founded by the National Women’s History Project and was publicly recognized and put into presidential proclamation in 1987.

The RISE In-Prison Program continued to have programming delays in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic as facilities would go into lockdowns for weeks - even months on end. However, our program participants and peer facilitators stayed focused and determined, often meeting with their fellow classmates in housing units, which allowed the program to stay on course.

RISE is celebrating African American History month this February with a formal presentation by Dr. Nikitah Imani at tomorrow's RISE all staff meeting, February 25th.

Jasmine L. Harris, RISE’s Director of Policy and Advocacy, graduated from Dream Corps JUSTICE’s first-ever Empathy Network Leadership Cohort. The 6-month training program was modeled after strategies Dream Corps JUSTICE used while working to pass the First Step Act in 2018; the bipartisan legislative effort across the country to improve criminal justice outcomes and reduce the federal prison population.

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.

We are thrilled to share RISE has been selected to receive a $1,000 grant from The Starbucks Foundation as part of their Neighborhood Grants program.

We're celebrating everyone that makes RISE a success. We could not do this work and without the support, engagement, volunteerism, expertise, and hope you give.

We are thrilled to announce RISE's most recent team member, Emma Johnson, as the Director of Annual Giving & Stewardship!