Budget
$29,800.00
Description
Our Project ART ("Art to Rehabilitate and Teach") program uses art, music, and horticulture classes to teach incarcerated youth and adults valuable technical and life skills, provide a healthy form of self-expression, and facilitate positive relationships between incarcerated people, instructors who serve as mentors, and correctional staff. Two-hour classes are held five times a week at three correctional facilities.
Program Successes
Survey responses from the boys in our art classes demonstrate the transformative impact Project ART can have on a life:
"I feel more hopeful. They [the instructors] make me strive in a way like getting my education. They're very communicating than most mentors and they care like family."
"[Project ART] gave me something to do other than the normal everyday schedule and it also allowed me to channel my energy into something positive. It helps take our minds off the everyday stress of being incarcerated. It shows me I'm creative and talented enough to find other ways to provide for myself."
"This shows us a way to blow off steam in a non-violent way They treat us like people. Not prisoners. When I'm here I feel as if I'm meditating. It is just a really good program."
Terry, an incarcerated boy who participates in both classes, graduated as valedictorian of his GED class in February 2022. In his graduation speech, Terry drew upon what he has learned from his art classes.
Category
Crime & Legal - Related  - Rehabilitation Services for Offenders 
Beneficiaries
Adults
At-Risk Populations
Children and Youth (0 - 19 years)
Long-term Success
Project ART students develop persistence and a positive work ethic as they work through revisions to create a final product. The Project ART students also collaborate on large murals to brighten up the prison walls, which is a way for them to put something positive into their own community. Our Project ART guitar students have learned to sight read music and progressed from knowing nothing about the guitar to playing several different songs. They were recently celebrated in a graduation ceremony attended by their entire dorm. At the conclusion of the horticulture classes, students receive 18 college credits from Central Georgia Technical College that are transferrable to any institution of higher learning. Additionally, they obtain a Certified Landscape Technician certificate. Regular participation in the art classes contributes to overall academic and reentry success, and our participants are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement than non-participant peers.
Short-term Success
Project ART participants experience the many benefits of art, music, and horticulture (e.g., increased self-confidence, good work habits, better communication, improved interpersonal skills, emotional/educational/personal growth, and career pathways), and establish positive relationships with Project ART instructors/mentors who help kids address the personal issues that led to their incarceration, encourage their incarcerated learners in their journey forward, and prepare them to live a crime-free life of purpose after prison. The program has had a profound impact on incarcerated kids as demonstrated by a decline in disciplinary infractions, an increase in program participation, and a culture change in the dorm for incarcerated juveniles. Since our programs fully resumed post-COVID, the young men know each other on a first name basis, express hope for the future, and have proposed starting several programs of their own, including a drama club,
Program Success Monitored By
Student surveys, personal interviews, and disciplinary reports are used to measure outcomes and improve programming. HeartBound also works closely with Department of Corrections staff to gather data to drive the planning process and monitor outcomes.
Program Areas Served
Adult and juvenile correctional facilities, Georgia

Budget
$15,600.00
Description
HeartBound recognizes that parents can positively shape children, even if they are incarcerated. To help incarcerated parents and their children, HeartBound created Little Readers to break the generational cycle of low literacy and incarceration, promote a culture of literacy and book access in families impacted by incarceration, and mitigate the traumatic effects of family incarceration. Eighty percent of these children live at or below the poverty level. Having a parent in prison decreases the likelihood of being read to as a child yet being read to daily by a family member is one of the best indicators of academic success. Basic literacy skills are crucial to curtailing the school to prison pipeline.

Program Successes
This email from a Little Readers volunteer illustrates the profound impact Little Readers can have on a family: "I have been to the prison three times and I have left changed every time. My heart is always touched. I have experienced a beautiful song written for a beloved daughter, two young men, in tears, about not knowing their children and excited that they will be able to have an impact on their life through Little Readers and watching, myself in tears (on the inside) as these men of stone morph into 'daddy' as they read a children's book to their children. I've seen grown men shaking with fear of being in front of a camera and in fear of, once again, letting their families/children down, leave with heads held high and giant smiles on their faces at the conclusion of their video. I have so enjoyed being a part of this! Thank you for seeing the need and stepping in to fill the void. The parent child connection is so important."
Beneficiaries
Families
At-Risk Populations
Children and Youth (0 - 19 years)
Long-term Success
Little Readers has provided literacy and bonding opportunities for over 9,600 children and 5,000 incarcerated adults since the program's inception in 2014. Based on surveys, we estimate that children watch the videos and read along at least once a day, providing an estimated 70 minutes of reading time per week for each child. For each child in the Little Readers program who reads ten minutes a day, he/she reads an estimated 1,800 minutes per school year, or 900,000 words, which leads to gains in reading comprehension, vocabulary expansion, memory improvement, and mental focus.
Short-term Success
Based on surveys, we estimate that children watch the videos and read along at least once a day, providing an estimated 70 minutes of reading time per week for each child. For each child in the Little Readers program who reads ten minutes a day, he/she reads an estimated 1,800 minutes per school year, or 900,000 words, which leads to gains in reading comprehension, vocabulary expansion, memory improvement, and mental focus.
Program Success Monitored By
Written and phone surveys and verbal feedback from participants are used to measure success. Student surveys, personal interviews, and disciplinary reports are used to measure outcomes and improve programming. HeartBound also works closely with Dr. Heather Corbett, Director of Career, Technical and Higher Education for the Georgia Department of Corrections, to gather data to drive the planning process and monitor outcomes.
Program Areas Served
Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi

Budget
$42,200.00
Description
HeartBound established and funds the first and only women's prison seminary at Whitworth Women's Facility, a 430-bed correctional facility in Northeast Georgia. The program is run in conjunction with Leavell College, with the shared goal to educate and empower incarcerated women and equip leaders from within the inmate population to change the culture both inside and outside prison walls.
Program Successes
Question-response forms are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Whitworth seminary program. Statements by the students speak of the program's success:
"We've learned so much. It's given us a purpose where our time here is not wasted. It's impactful not just for us, but to our families on the outside and people around us. Like there is no way you can go through this process and not be changed. Absolutely no way. This program has restored everything that my addiction tore apart before I got here. Without me having to do anything except let the program work through me." - Lorrie, Class of 2021
"There was even a field practicum that they made from scratch that was geared toward one of the biggest things -- domestic violence. So it's just been amazing to see the things that we've come through, that we've learned about, the things that we are able to pass on to others. It's made a huge difference, a difference in my family. My mom and I are having a better relationship."
Beneficiaries
Formerly incarcerated people & incarcerated people
Adults
At-Risk Populations
Long-term Success
The Women's Prison Seminary program significantly improves outcomes for incarcerated women. In 2022, the Georgia Department of Corrections conducted a reentry report on our released seminary students. The results were 0% recidivism, 0% relapse occurrence, 100% employed, 100% reconciled to family, and 50% of the women were continuing their education. 1. Inspiring family members of incarcerated women: At our graduation ceremony in Spring 2021, the graduates shared one way in which the program has impacted them. They repeatedly said that the program encouraged them to build a legacy of education in their own families. Our college students also impact young women who are cycling in and out of prison on shorter sentences by sharing life with them day-in and day-out. When a college student positively affects a young woman and gives her the needed tools to live a crime-free life, the family of that inmate will be positively affected as well.
Short-term Success
Since 2018, disciplinary infractions have been reduced dramatically at Whitworth. Moral, educated inmates are the most valuable asset any prison can have. Our first class of college students began their degree program in Fall 2018. In the 2.5 years since the program began, assaults on officers at Whitworth fell by 50%, acts of aggression and violence were down 40%, and disruptive acts dropped 67%. When a prison college program is done with excellence, the college students become a great asset to the administration of the prison. Our college students are able to teach classes, facilitate activities, and be agents of change who create a positive, supportive and productive community in which to live. The students have a vested interest in the prison being a place of peace. It's their home. When they are recognized and released to do a good work in their "community," the benefit is felt by the inmates and the staff alike.
Program Success Monitored By
Student surveys, personal interviews, and disciplinary reports are used to measure outcomes and improve programming. HeartBound also works closely with the Reentry Coordinator for the Georgia Department of Corrections, to gather data to drive the planning process and monitor outcomes.
Program Areas Served
Georgia