Los Angeles (March 7, 2022) – A New Way of Life Reentry Project (ANWOL) announces that MacKenzie Scott has made a significant gift to our nonprofit organization. Scott’s gift comes at an exciting time in our organization’s history as ANWOL has developed a number of new initiatives to continue to serve the holistic needs of formerly incarcerated people.
ANWOL Founder Susan Burton said, “We are thrilled to receive this level of support to continue our freedom work.” Co-Director Michael Towler added, “We are humbled that MacKenzie Scott has recognized the important work that we do here at A New Way of Life Reentry Project.” Co-Director Pamela Marshall noted, “This will go towards supporting formerly incarcerated communities that have been historically oppressed and forgotten.”
This gift will support our core mission of promoting healing, power, and opportunity for formerly incarcerated people. Services that will benefit include our Family Reunification Legal Team, which offers pro bono legal services to support formerly incarcerated parents to reunite with their children, and our SAFE Housing Network, which is a national and international network of allied nonprofits offering reentry services to formerly incarcerated communities. This is in addition to our housing, advocacy, leadership training, and clean slate pro bono legal services.
This gift is a call for all communities to recognize and own the effects that systemic oppression and mass incarceration have had on our society. The movement to end systemic oppression and mass incarceration must not forget women and LGBT communities of color.
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About A New Way of Life
In 1998, Susan Burton founded A New Way of Life Reentry Project (ANWOL) to help women, families, and communities break the cycle and heal from the formidable experiences of incarceration. ANWOL advances multi-dimensional solutions to the effects of incarceration, including: (1) providing housing and support to formerly incarcerated women for successful community reentry, family reunification, and individual healing; (2) working to restore the civil rights of formerly incarcerated people; and (3) empowering, organizing, and mobilizing formerly incarcerated people as advocates for social change and personal transformation.
A New Way of Life is confronting harmful stereotypes and demonstrating that alternatives to incarceration are possible. ANWOL is breaking the cycle of recidivism, repairing families, and developing leaders. The organization’s approach is built upon four key values that are necessary to promote community reentry after incarceration: (1) every person has inherent value and holds the power of possibility and transformation within them; (2) public resources are better invested in opportunities for transformation than on prisons and punishment; (3) formerly incarcerated people must be at the forefront in creating solutions to the incarceration crisis; and (4) incarceration of a family member affects the entire family and the healing process must involve the entire family. For more information about A New Way of Life Reentry Project, visit: www.anewwayoflife.org.
About SAFE Housing Network
Since 2018, the SAFE Housing Network has provided a model and framework for supporting formerly incarcerated individuals nationwide. This network of 16 authorized replicators modeled after the reentry philosophy and services of A New Way of Life Reentry Project operates across 11 states, 3 countries, and offered over 450 individuals reentry services in 2020. SAFE Housing Network members receive nonprofit and reentry support from ANWOL through monthly zoom workshops, annual training retreats, and additional administrative support. For more information about the SAFE Housing Network, visit: https://anewwayoflife.org/safe-housing-network/.
