Houston-area motorcycle riders are hoping for great weather to raise awareness and funds toward breaking the cycle of recidivism in Texas.
The inaugural “Ride for Re-Entry” on Saturday, Oct. 23, will benefit CrossWalk Center, a Houston-based nonprofit supporting men and women in prison and after they are released through discipleship and support services with the goal of keeping them out of prison.
Riders will leave from Mancuso Crossroads Harley-Davidson at 12710 Crossroads Park Drive in west Houston and end up at Scotty’s Saloon OTP at 114 Agnes Road in Richmond.
CrossWalk Center recently celebrated its fifth anniversary and has a goal of raising $20,000. Executive Director Kathy Vosburg said the weather should be beautiful and the ride is a great way to help people that could use an extra hand.
“It’s really important that we don’t, for lack of better description, kick people further while they’re down,” she said. “It is so much better to say, ‘OK, none of us like what you did in the past, but that is what you did. It is not who you are today and who you can become.’”
Nearly 17,000 individuals are released each day from Texas Department of Criminal Justice prisons. In 2020, CrossWalk had taught its re-entry curriculum to 663 men and women inside prison facilities until TDCJ barred visitors and volunteers from coming inside in late March to protect prisoners from the coronavirus.
CrossWalk also opened two additional re-entry homes in 2020 that provide housing for released men. Today, there are four in total. The strategic plan allotted for three new homes opened each year. But Vosburg is proud of the two.
“My comment to the world is you have to try, and what you managed to achieve is success, especially under these unforeseen historical moments we’re living in,” Vosburg said.
CrossWalk is currently securing a fifth re-entry home and plans to do some construction work there before welcoming 23 individuals that have already been vetted and accepted into the program. Vosburg explained even with a pandemic going on, the released individuals still need help.
The 2021-22 strategic plan has CrossWalk launching its first women’s program outside prison walls and opening the first women’s re-entry home, hopefully by April 2022. The nonprofit is currently raising funds and a network of volunteers willing “sow” seeds into the programming. So far, three women have committed to coming. Others are in the application process.
“We’re walking by faith and not by sight, believing that the city of Houston, the citizens of this region, believe in second chances and will do what it takes financially to help make this happen,” Vosburg said.
For now, TDCJ requires 70 percent of inmates and staff to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before visitors and volunteers can come back into a unit. CrossWalk’s access is also determined by the prison wardens and chaplains. Prior to the pandemic, the organization and its volunteers were teaching its 40-week curriculum in 11 prison units. So far, they are back in three and working to return to others.
Vosburg and her team saw how businesses, churches and other groups were leveraging technology amid the pandemic and considered how that might work in prisons to reach more individuals. But prisons are highly secure places. Beginning last fall, CrossWalk started developing a secure way to get their curriculum across using certain equipment. The program was approved by TDCJ. Now each Tuesday, the program is delivering its curriculum at the Carol S. Vance Unit in Richmond. Vosburg said CrossWalk is the only volunteer and nonprofit organization leading such a program in Texas. She hopes to bring it to a women’s unit as well.
“I think the whole idea and concept is actually kind of a breakthrough moment for us because through this, we can and could expand and scale our program into prisons all across Texas without having to have equipped and trained volunteers in that city to go in that prison, which is hard to recruit volunteers,” Vosburg said.
She looks at how the pandemic’s physical isolation from others has impacted people in the outside world and says people were designed for relationships. Programs helping those in prison, who are by nature isolated, are even more important now, she said.
Vosburg explained when individuals leave prison, they need support to avoid going back because they have paid their debt to society and often lack access to housing, transportation and employment. Many have been locked up for 20, 30 or 40 years and have little concept of how to function in a world that has vastly changed around them. Vosburg said without help, they may resort to doing whatever they need to survive, or they may fall into the homeless population, using drugs and alcohol to cope or developing mental illness.
CrossWalk Center approached Mancuso Crossings General Manager Dickson Mann about taking on the motorcycle ride. He said because the dealership is very involved with supporting the military, veterans and first responders, the partnership seemed natural.
“When people come out of the military, they kind of need help fitting back into society and feeling comfortable with it. And I see this kind of the same presence of people coming out of an institution that really doesn’t have a whole lot to help them get back into natural, everyday life,” Mann explained. “And with CrossWalk, they seem to be a center based on helping those folks get back to everyday life so they don’t end up back in an institution again.”
Online registration for the ride is available at www.crosswalkcenter.com. Onsite registration is also welcome and begins at 9 a.m. on Oct. 23. To be one of the 25 VIP lead riders, registration is $100. A single rider is $30, and a double rider is $50.
Mancuso Crossroads will provide breakfast for the riders. There will be music, a raffle and door prizes. Speakers will share about the mission of CrossWalk Center. A barbecue lunch will be served at Scotty’s Saloon.
tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
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CrossWalk Center's "Ride to Re-Entry" to raise awareness, funds to break cycle of recidivism - Houston Chronicle
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