When Someone Shows Up
Walking into a federal prison or a jail for the first time is scary. The locked doors, the strict procedures, the feeling of being cut off from the outside world. That is how my recent guests on Community Possibilities, Shazad Carbaidwala and Dr. Leila Richards, described their first visits as volunteers with Prisoner Visitation and Support (PVS), a national nonprofit that sends trained volunteers into federal and military prisons to sit with incarcerated people and simply listen.
Friends, this conversation stuck with me for days.
PVS has one simple, ambitious goal: that every person in a federal or military prison who requests a visit has access to a qualified visitor. Since that isn’t reality now, PVS prioritized people who rarely receive visits at all, people in solitary confinement, people on death row, and people serving long sentences.
Here is what struck me most. PVS volunteers do not ask why someone is incarcerated. They do not dig into why someone is in prison. They cannot stay in contact once someone is released. The relationship exists only inside those walls, and that is by design. As Leila put it, she does not want her experience of a person to be colored by whatever crime puts them there. She quoted attorney Bryan Stevenson, who said, “We are all better than the worst thing we have ever done.”
Shazad came to this work from a law enforcement background, which surprised me, honestly. He talked about choosing empathy over judgment because, in his words, “Who am I to judge anybody on what their wrongdoings are?”
This is where my evaluator brain perked up. I asked Shazad and Leila what success looks like for PVS and how they measure it. Leila gave me an answer I loved for its honesty. Donors always want impact measured, she said, but recidivism is shaped by so many forces that isolating PVS's effect on it is nearly impossible. What they do have are letters of support. Yes, letters from incarcerated people sharing how the visits help. But also support where you might not expect it. Leila shared a note from the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons calling PVS “a consistent and compassionate presence” in a system where so many people are isolated, forgotten, or placed far from family.
You know how I feel about the word “impact.” That word gets used so much that it's lost its meaning. But there is something undeniably powerful about one human simply being present for another, even when you cannot put a number on it.
PVS is also dealing with a very real nonprofit problem: a post-COVID volunteer shortage and a waiting list of more than 500 people requesting visits. If this conversation moves you, share it with someone who believes community means more than a slogan.
This episode also got me thinking about the kind of leader each of us is showing up as in our nonprofits, our coalitions, our communities. If that question is rattling around in your head, too, download our free What Kind of Community Leader Are You workbook. And while you are there, be sure to check out our other resources.
Take care, friends,
Ann