[In this video, six people are having a conversation. The people’s names are Chelsea Jordan-Makely, Charissa Brammer, Amy Bahlenhorst, Sara Wicen, Carol Peeples, and Renee Barnes.]

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: Does anybody have a most memorable experience that you’d like to share?

Amy Bahlenhorst: I can share. At the end of this project I was very pregnant. Very obviously, very pregnant. And that was a trying experience in many ways while going into a prison, but one thing that I will always remember that was a super humanizing experience for me was a person in one of our focus groups who genuinely took an interest in like how I was doing as a pregnant person and we had this really lovely conversation about cake flavors and different like foods that I was craving and stuff. And like it was this very much like “oh you’re a person and you care about me because we are people together in this like, really interesting experience that we’re doing.” And so that was a very, like, happy and positive thing that I’ll remember.

Carol Peeples: I had a guy in a focus group wearing his library card around his neck. That if you’re…he was living in the shared living outside of, you know, in Aurora. And he talked about going to the public library every day, and it was, it transitioned from his love of the prison library. So that was the like, a singular library, but a moment. But also just going back to that the what I what I enjoy hearing cause I’ve always loved libraries and I mean I really tried not to let that get in the middle of you know like…persuade you know, sway people, but I heard it again and again in the midst of this prison environment, these libraries are the oasis or can be the oasis, depending on staff and resources. And I heard that so often and that was really memorable to me that there’s such a lifeline to the community outside into the future. Before I got on this call, I was mentioning talked to a new employee here. He just did 15 years and I told him that this research and what we had done and he just lit up. He’s like, “Oh the librarian (and it’s at Fremont,) and said her name, she’s my favorite person,” and then just like talking about the importance of the library. I kind of tear up right now because I know this is such important programming and for resources to be directed toward it, so that was that was definitely was memorable thing.

Renee Barnes: I would say there were a few times where I had had where in the way we selected the groups former patrons of mine wound up in the group, so obviously I wasn’t out in the library at those times, but in one, when they had wrapped up and I came out to answer any questions. I hadn’t seen this person in 10 years probably. And he still knew who I was. What I had helped him with. And just as someone who’s been a prison librarian, you don’t get to see that kind of impact that you’ve had on people very often. And to see really that I had made a difference for that person was great.

Sara Wicen: There were a couple focus groups where there was just so much gratitude expressed afterwards from participants for us being there and listening, and that was something that I think caught me off guard a little bit at first and that it made a big impact. And then just, yeah, hearing people’s stories and how the library has changed their life in prison. And sometimes that’s if they came to prison not being able to read or not being able to use a computer and being able to have the library give them the opportunity to learn it’s, it’s just really powerful.

Charissa Brammer: Yeah, I think I have two that always fight for my, you know, most memorable experience. The one is the person who said literally one thing during the focus group and then at the end, said one of the most beautiful library support speeches I’ve ever heard. That was that one was really hard for me too, cause’ we deleted all of the audio. That one really hurt my heart to delete because it was so beautiful. We also had a person who, in the time where we were hanging out afterwards because after the focus group, if they had extra time, we were just hanging out with these folks and I had one group of people who shared with us all the stories of when they decided to turn their lives around and they had gone from, you know, being maximum security life sentences to still having life sentences but moved into an incentive unit. And were doing the absolute best with their lives and were getting degrees and doing all of these things.

And it was just so beautiful to hear these stories from these people who with, you know, you don’t go to college when you were in prison for life because you want to go get a job like we did. Right? I went to college because I wanted to get a job. They’re doing it purely to improve their lives and they’re doing it within this society that they know and they are stuck in. And so that was just really beautiful. And I think that was one of our first groups, but it was seeing that ability to make those changes was really cool. And the fact that they were just so open to it with us about it was really cool. I think that that demonstrated the level of trust that they have, that they’re just like and that often happened in the time afterwards, that we would hear these things about their lives and just how not just libraries, but also education, and these incentive programs and everything help people who are living their lives inside those walls. So that was my big one.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: Thank you all for sharing those. That concludes the end of our questions, but I do wanna hold space. If anybody has anything that they want to add.

Charissa Brammer: There was also one person [laughter] who really loved carrots and we brought fresh fruit and vegetables in for folks, and so he I’ll never forget him. Just so excited about carrots.

Chelsea Jordan-Makely: I think we all feel incredibly grateful to have been a part of this work and also that we can now help to show the importance of this work and hopefully it inspires others to replicate it and get started in their communities and can have a lasting and ripple effect. So thank you all so much for helping to unpack this for others and being a part of this really beautiful, humanistic team.

Carol Peeples
Thank you.