A New Way of Life

Linking promise with opportunity

Dean

ANWOL Providing Emergency Relief to LA Fire Survivors

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The January 2025 wildfires devastated Los Angeles, leaving thousands of families displaced, homes destroyed, and entire communities struggling to recover. While disaster affects everyone, it does not affect everyone equally. The crisis hit hardest for those already facing economic insecurity—low-income families, people impacted by incarceration, and workers in industries now disrupted by the fires.

Starting on March 18th, A New Way of Life began welcoming displaced Altadena families to our distribution center in Montebello, CA. As an LA based nonprofit, we feel a responsibility to help our community, and we know what it’s like to start over from nothing. So we are stepping in to provide immediate relief and long-term support—ensuring that no one is left behind. So far, we have served over 150 individuals on their road to normalcy.

Immediate and Long-Term Relief: A Community Hub for Recovery

  1. Direct cash assistance ($500-$1,000 per household)
  2. Clothing, toiletries, and household essentials

Our Goals:

  1. Support 500-1,000 households with direct assistance
  2. Push for policy changes that ensure fair wages and employment opportunities for marginalized communities, including incarcerated firefighters

Many have lost not just their homes, but also their jobs, financial stability, and access to critical services. These families were already navigating housing insecurity and economic hardship before the fires—now, they are at even greater risk of displacement, unemployment, and deepening poverty.

How You Can Help:
This is not just about relief—it’s about justice. Together, we have a unique opportunity to invest in a recovery model that prioritizes equity and systemic change. The individuals displaced by the fires deserve more than a return to poverty and exclusion, and Angelenos of every socioeconomic status deserve to be able to rebuild their lives with dignity and ample support after this disaster.

  1. Fund our initiative—your support will provide immediate relief and long-term stability.
  2. Advocate with us—help push for fair employment opportunities for everyone impacted, including incarcerated firefighters.

Together, we will build a just recovery for everyone impacted by the LA fires.

Donate Today

Celebrating Sherrick: A New Way of Life Discovers and Nurtures Hidden Talent

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“When was the last time discomfort forced a conversation you otherwise wouldn’t have had?” When this question was posed during a panel discussion at A New Way of Life’s 2023 Justice on Trial Film Festival, Sherrick Enriquez found himself mentally transported back to the trauma of incarceration. Our founder, Susan Burton, noticed his growing discomfort and encouraged him to stay to the end. Sherrick was eventually able to become grounded by healing images of freedom. Susan was intrigued by his engagement with the group, and, after learning more about him, she offered Sherrick a job with A New Way of Life’s maintenance team.

As an expression of gratitude for this opportunity, Sherrick drew a picture of Susan – sketching was his hobby, something to pass the time while incarcerated. Recognizing his talent, Susan purchased his first set of paints which allowed him to develop his craft on canvas. A New Way of Life’s management team also encouraged him to increase his skills as our artist in residence.

Along with his work in maintenance, Sherrick spent hours at our Montebello campus honing his skills. Around this time, Choreographer and Multimedia Creative Storyteller Himmeria Worthman began the process of creating a short film inspecting freedom and expression for formerly incarcerated individuals. Her first thoughts were to focus on dance, but as she toured the Montebello campus, she noticed Sherrick immersed in his work. Inspired by his art and his story, she knew she had discovered a subject for her film.

Exploring movement in brushstroke, process, and storytelling as a catalyst for expression, Worthman’s film, “Endless Echoes Within,” was screened at the Wende Museum in Culver City, CA, August 31st, 2024. When the film ended, everyone in the room felt a fervency of emotion. Just as the production explored physical movement – whether intentional or serendipitous – the audience, too, was moved. Beyond physical freedom, the film touched on emotional and mental freedom as Sherrick shared his journey as an artist, from incarceration to liberation.

Building on this experience, Sherrick has gone on to pursue art as a profession, with his paintings being featured in various exhibits. He recently completed all conditions of parole and is engaged to be married.

While Sherrick’s journey is unique, his ability to overcome the trauma of incarceration and flourish is not. When people are offered the right opportunities to develop their talents and pursue their dreams, success follows. For others like Sherrick, A New Way of Life works tirelessly to provide unique and individualized resources to set them on trajectories that lead to true freedom.

Your donation helps us continue to nurture the potential of people whose talents and skills often go unnoticed and are undervalued.

Please Support our Freedom Work Here

January 21st is National Day of Racial Healing

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During this difficult political transition, we are writing to celebrate the National Day of Racial Healing. Hosted the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it encourages us to speak openly and honestly about the past wrongs of anti-black racism. But it also represents hope: hope for change, and a stand against silence.

The conversation around racism is more important than ever. With the recent flipping of the White House and the House of Representatives, the direction of racial healing is uncertain. The failure of Prop 6 in California, which would have abolished involuntary servitude in prisons, and the passage of Prop 36, which increases sentences for nonviolent theft and drug crimes, sends the wrong message: prison is the solution to our problems. These changes are a step backward, and A New Way of Life will continue fighting for more humane and practical policies.

Beyond Sacramento and D.C., this country has lost something greater: its conversation around racism. The murder of George Floyd at the hands of police brought shock and awareness to America, and the work of our friends at All of Us or None propelled the conversation about racial injustice into nearly every school, business, and university. But in recent years, people have retreated; waves of book bans and new laws targeting discussions of race in the classroom have spread. We also feel it at work – people don’t talk about racism as they used to. This choice to look away is dangerous, and continuing on this silent course will only lead to more incarceration.

In this moment, we must speak with conviction and listen with compassion. The only way to break the silence is to speak up, and discussing the cruelty of mass incarceration is the simplest kind of freedom work. It also requires compassionate listening; this election showed that America’s marginalized groups are not a monolith, and we must bring more voices in.

Despite these challenges, A New Way of Life sees hope. There is hope in the younger generations, who center activism and freedom work for marginalized people around the world. And we see hope in A New Way of Life’s mission: this year, we passed 1700 residents who went through our program, with only 4% returning to prison. Our residents are bringing more energy to these conversations than ever before, and you can find their stories on A New Way of Life’s Instagram. We’ve also been promoting stories from formerly incarcerated people through our annual Justice on Trial Film Festival, which is now in its 14th year.

This may be a trying time, but the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. lives on. We still envision a world where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Dr. King showed us that racial healing is possible – but we cannot heal in silence.

 

Black–Still: Testif-i Living Library

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On July 16, A New Way of Life partnered with the enFOLD Collective to showcase our Testif-i multimedia initiative through the Black–Still installation at the Craft Contemporary museum. Evie, a member of our 2022 Testif-i cohort, shared her powerful reentry story: the challenges she’s faced, the support she’s received, and the resilience she’s practiced while being true to herself on her healing journey.

Testif-i is a storytelling platform that highlights the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated women and their families, whose stories are often left unheard due to the systemic discrimination that they face. The initiative aims to change the narrative about mass incarceration while focusing on women’s experiences in particular. As the Sentencing Project notes, women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population. In spite of this, stories about men tend to dominate national conversations, so Testif-i seeks to rectify that.

Black–Still attendees watching Evie’s Testif-i video before entering the exhibit.

As a Testif-i participant, Evie expressed her passion for transforming the pain of her past into purpose. She vividly described the inhumane nature of her incarceration, during which she gave birth under degrading conditions. After incarceration, Evie made great strides in her personal and professional life. Evie became a resident at A New Way of Life, and then later accepted a position in our Administrative Department. She dreams of one day opening her own SAFE House, just like Ms. Susan Burton, whose story inspired her when she first read her memoir in prison.

Description of the Craft Contemporary’s enFOLD Collective: Black – Still exhibit.

The Black–Still installation at Craft Contemporary provided a tranquil space for sharing Evie’s story and the struggles that many formerly incarcerated women and their families face. With cool mist providing respite from a hot summer day, and with the walls drowning out the sounds of a bustling Los Angeles city street, the space invited reflection from the attendees.

Inside the Black–Still exhibit.

This exhibit stands out as even more important in the context of a country that often does not offer any support for the 1.9 million women released from prisons and jails each year or their families. Community-based initiatives like Testif-I and Black–Still will continue to serve critical roles of providing marginalized communities with platforms for sharing their stories and changing unjust systems.

Juneteenth in an Era of Mass Incarceration

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158 years ago today, a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned about their freedom, over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had declared them free from slavery. The anniversary of this event, recognized as Juneteenth, commemorates African American liberty, resilience, and strength in a way that pushes back against the anti-Black institutions of the United States that perpetuate systemic racism. As we celebrate this history, we also ask the question: what does real, full freedom look like?

This time of celebration often invites reflection on the current state of Black liberation movements in the United States—on how far these movements have progressed and on how they continue to face barriers. Generations of racial justice activists have advocated for social, cultural, and legal advancements that more fully realize the country’s ideals of equality and inclusivity for all. For many, Juneteenth serves as a period of recognition and honoring of these efforts.

At the same time however, as scholars like Michelle Alexander and Angela Davis have noted, anti-Blackness continues to manifest itself. Institutions police Black communities and incarcerate these communities at alarming rates—especially when compared to other racial groups in the country. The Prison Policy Initiative found that racial disparities are starkest for Black Americans, who make up about 38% of the incarcerated population despite only making up about 12% of American residents. This is in contrast to White Americans also constituting about 38% of the incarcerated population while making up about 60% of American residents.

Likewise, slavery remains allowed by the United States constitution as a punishment for crime. In a 2017 study, the Prison Policy Initiative reported that incarcerated people earn $0.86-$3.45 per day for the most common prison jobs on average, while these jobs pay nothing in at least 5 states. Under such conditions, African Americans who are targeted most in this era of mass incarceration are stripped of their freedom.

On this Juneteenth, A New Way of Life pays tribute to the abolitionists who have mothered and continue to mother the freedom movement. Our mission continues—to empower communities with opportunity where justice-impacted women can heal, excel, and lead while disrupting systems of oppression and harm. We persist in dedicating ourselves to mitigating the effects of and ultimately eliminating mass incarceration so that we might be a freer and more just society.

Susan’s Visit to Africa: Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda

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This past Christmas and New Year, I challenged myself to take a trip to Africa. I needed to take an ancestral journey to the motherland, and so I reached out to my dear friend, Dr. Jennifer Madden and her husband Khalil. Together, we made the trip, and I must say it was quite a journey.

Our travels took us to three countries in West and East Africa: Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. We connected with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and learned about the work they are doing to help women while incarcerated and upon their release. We visited the local prisons—you know I could not pass up the opportunity to visit a women’s prison. Much like here in the United States, women across the continent of Africa have access to very few resources that can help them while caught in the legal system.

During these visits, I had conversations with prison officials and spoke with them about the need for women to have housing and services upon release. They were in complete agreement. One official, Controller B. R. Freedman (head of the prison system in Lagos, Nigeria), was so overwhelmed with hope after seeing one of our videos that he presented me with an award. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude. It was such a good meeting!

I also met with a group of formerly incarcerated women to learn firsthand about their reentry experience. They spoke about being disowned by family and pushed out of the villages they called home prior to being incarcerated. The stigma across the continent is more devastating than we experience here in the United States. Here, we have done so much advocacy work to overcome the stigma and support people to come home and rebuild their lives. This work has not yet taken root in the countries I visited.

In Kenya, I met up with several NGOs to learn more and talk about their work with women—and, of course, I went with them into the prison. While in Kenya, I was able to experience the safari and reconnect with the land. I saw zebras, giraffes, gazelles, and lions. It was so beautiful.

Uganda holds a special place in my heart because of the relationships I had previously created during past visits. Several years ago, in 2019, I was fortunate enough to create a friendship and partnership with Francis Ssuubi (Executive Director of Wells of Hope). We had met when I went to Uganda with Rebecca Ginsburg (Founder and Director of the Illinois-based Education Justice Project). Francis’ nonprofit, Wells of Hope, is a Christian organization that does outreach to children with parents who are currently incarcerated and those who are formerly incarcerated. Wells of Hope provides a boarding school for the children of incarcerated parents.

During my last visit, in 2019, I had gone to the local prison and met with some of the incarcerated women. There, I witnessed the lack of services for women and I immediately began to think of what we could do to help them when they are released. I wanted to help create an opportunity for these formerly incarcerated women to transform their lives. Working with Wells of Hope, Francis and I established the first SAFE home for women in the continent of Africa, in Kampala, Uganda.

Four years later, during this current visit, I was able to meet with some of the women who had been incarcerated during my first trip. It was beautiful to sit, talk and share food with them. I was especially happy to visit a woman, who is now a friend, who had been incarcerated back in 2019. She now owns a store that Wells of Hope helped her to get. When I see the process and transformation of the women I helped, it brings me joy and appreciation for what we have been able to accomplish through A New Way of Life’s SAFE Housing Network. This experience was definitely one of the highlights of this trip.

That these women are supported and doing well speaks to the work Francis has put into his community. I admire and respect him because of he has seen the value of this work and is dedicated to providing these women with a space for healing. He is such a kind soul. When I got off the plane, I was given such a warm welcome. There were young women carrying a large photograph of me and performing a welcome dance.

I started A New Way of Life in 1998 with the hope of helping women like me. In the twenty-five years since, this mission has led me all over the world to help formerly incarcerated and incarcerated women change their lives. It has been an incredible journey. I feel fortunate to be able to see the impact this mission has had, and I can’t wait to see what more is in store in the future for A New Way of Life and the SAFE Housing Network.