$4 million grant by Department of Labor helps Dannon Project restore lives
Nearly 25 years ago, Danon Pruitt’s young life was cut short. “As a high school senior, my youngest brother-in-law had his whole life ahead of him. He was an innocent bystander,” said Kerri Pruitt, co-founder and executive director of the Dannon Project. “He was murdered by someone who had just been released from prison and had no community support.” In the midst of hurt and pain – and, eventually, forgiveness – Pruitt conceived the Dannon Project. Since 1997, the nonprofit has worked to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell Danon Pruitt by combating the circumstances around his untimely death. (It uses the spelling “Dannon” because of a mistake in the original grant paperwork.) Nonviolent offenders recently released from jail or prison get a fresh start at the Dannon Project. (Dannon Project) In July, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded the Dannon Project a $4 million grant to provide reentry and supportive services to and reduce recidivism for people leaving prison or jail. The DOL has funded the nonprofit since 2009. The U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency in September awarded the Dannon Project a two-year, $300,000 grant for its Financial Literacy, Entrepreneurship and Education (FLEE) program. FLEE works to decrease crime and recidivism through entrepreneurial training, workshops, and business startup opportunities. The grant will allow the nonprofit to serve up to 40 people in the next two years, providing clients a pathway to successful reentry in Jefferson County. Pruitt said the Dannon Project has greatly reduced offenders’ return to incarceration. After taking part in the program, only 3% of adults ages 25 and older are reincarcerated. The recidivism rate is 8% for adults ages 18 through 24. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell praised the work done by the Dannon Project and the organization’s impact on lowering recidivism in the state. “As we continue to reexamine systems of racial inequity and oppression, I am grateful for organizations like the Dannon Project, who work to fill in the gaps left by our deeply flawed criminal justice system,” Sewell said. “In a state with one of the most underfunded and violent prison systems, with one of the highest rates of overall incarceration in the country, and where Black Americans are jailed at 3.3 times the rate of white Americans, we can clearly see the need for the work of the Dannon Project. Of course, this funding is just a drop in the bucket of what is needed for true reform, but it is a step in the right direction.” Pruitt said Dannon Project’s case managers provide participants with many “wraparound” social services that reduce the stress of returning to civilian life. For instance, the process of getting a state ID can seem “like a maze,” she said. “They need to get a driver’s license or a state ID, birth certificate and Social Security card,” Pruitt said. “This is very difficult for people who don’t know how to navigate this system. We also help our participants establish a medical healthcare home. Many of them have hypertension, high blood pressure, chronic dental problems, and diabetes. So we get them the medical care that they need.” Federal grant boosts Dannon Project’s successful work to break the recidivism cycle from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo. One mission, one life at a time Participants served by the Dannon Project must first complete a rigorous needs assessment. “On Day 1, we begin an assessment of the participant’s underlying issues and create an individual service plan,” Pruitt said. “The idea is to serve them holistically, which goes beyond just getting a job. We offer a robust pre- and post-release reentry-services package designed to end the cycle of recidivism.” The nonprofit provides services to residents of Birmingham and Montgomery, along with Blount, Calhoun, Clarke, Shelby, St. Clair, and Walker counties. Dannon Project staff members connect participants with behavioral health services that provide individual and group counseling and treatment. They offer a 30-day substance abuse counseling program on-site and partner with community mental health providers and substance-abuse programs. Occupational services run the gamut, from getting participants help in obtaining a commercial driver’s license to allied health nursing certifications and entrepreneurial training. “We customize a career pathway plan to guide them through the program and into a successful career,” Pruitt said. Living ‘The Write Life’ To keep participants on the right track as they complete their core career curriculum, the nonprofit offers electives, such as restorative justice, conflict resolution, a “Just Mercy” book club, and yoga. “The Write Life” is among the Dannon Project’s most innovative electives. The songwriting therapy program was developed by Grammy-nominated songwriter Alvin Garrett, of Birmingham. “By using the documented and proven attributes of music education, Garrett has created the perfect environment for behavioral modification and relationship building,” Pruitt said. “He enforces a ‘no-pollution’ clause. No vulgarity or profane language and messaging are allowed in class. With his charismatic guidance and mentoring, Garrett has inspired more engagement and positive results.” Through “The Write Life,” students have been able to write, record, and compete with original songs they promoted. “We believe that ‘The Write Life’ program is on a fast track to be a promising practice,” Pruitt said. Alabama Power Foundation ‘visionaries’ help Representatives of the Alabama Power Foundation have provided her organization with invaluable support for several years, Pruitt said. Once a quarter, Pruitt represents the Dannon Project during a meeting of about 50 Alabama nonprofits through the Alabama Workforce Council Public-Private Partnership (AWCPPP), hosted by the Alabama Power Foundation. The AWCPPP brings nonprofits together, helping remove barriers to education and enhancing workforce sectors whose mission is to build business and create jobs. This collaboration connects the Dannon Project and other nonprofits with grant writers who assist in securing funding from large foundations out of state. “We join in with people from Dothan, Huntsville, and several other cities across the state,” Pruitt said. “I’ve enjoyed the camaraderie I’ve found in these groups and nonprofits, and I really appreciate that they created this process for us.” She said most nonprofits in the South don’t have large operating budgets in comparison to other metropolitan areas of the
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“No one can avoid placing a dollar value on saving lives; always choosing safety just places an infinite dollar value on life.”
Special unit to treat nursing home patients with COVID-19 opens in Alabama
The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Rehab Select at Talladega is opening a special 16-bed unit to treat nursing home patients who have COVID-19. The unit will be in a separate building on the campus of Rehab Select, with financial support from Alabama’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. The establishment of the unit is part of UAB’s efforts to assist the community in managing and mitigating the pandemic. The unit will isolate nursing home residents who test positive and are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic while providing the appropriate level of skilled nursing care those patients require. The unit can accept COVID-19-positive patients from hospitals across the state for ongoing short-term rehabilitation. Dr. Kellie Flood (UAB) “The unit will continue our mission to provide evidence-based care for these vulnerable patients across the care continuum,” said Dr. Kellie Flood, associate professor in the UAB Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care. “Our goal is to provide them with the same care elements they receive regularly in their skilled nursing environments, such as rehabilitation, during these unprecedented times. We are also partnering with our infectious disease, infection prevention, and PPE (personal protective equipment) experts to provide this unit’s team with best practices for COVID-19 management and processes to keep team members safe.” The facility has a separate entrance and ventilation system. The nursing staff will be coordinated and trained by UAB. “Nursing home residents have special needs, and for those with mild illness from the virus, an acute care hospital is not necessarily the right environment,” said Christopher Schmidt, president/CEO of Rehab Select at Talladega. “This program will blend the hospital and skilled nursing environments to make sure all their needs are met.” The unit will ease pressure on hospitals by freeing beds for acutely sick patients with COVID-19 or non-COVID illness. It will help reduce the spread of infection within a skilled nursing facility by providing a safe transition-of-care option for patients who cannot be isolated in their home facility. The Talladega unit is accepting patients beginning Oct. 5. UAB partnered with Aspire Physical Recovery Center in Hoover to open a similar unit in July. “These units are part of a broader collaboration between the UAB Health System, state and county governments, local area hospitals and our affiliated nursing homes to create a care continuum structure to develop a prevention and mitigation plan to respond to potential nursing home outbreaks of COVID-19 in Alabama,” said Brian Spraberry, chief administrative officer for the UAB Health System. That plan will establish a line of communication with representatives from acute care, post-acute care, public health, the Alabama Nursing Home Association, and Alabama Hospital Association with the following goals: Coordinate consistent infection-control practices and provide practical guidelines for PPE utilization and conservation for the COVID-19 unit and community collaborative. Create a centralized process to track and test nursing home residents and employees to help inform and implement surveillance protocols for people under investigation by using a reporting structure through the county EMA or other such monitoring protocols as available. Create a four-stage response plan to mitigate any resurgence occurring in the Jefferson County region, to include exposure notification, PPE utilization, infection control, testing protocols, and staffing. This story originally appeared on the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s UAB News website. Republished with the permission of Alabama NewsCenter.
Alabama native Catherine Coleman Flowers awarded “genius” status from MacArthur Foundation
When Catherine Coleman Flowers was told she was one of the 21 recipients of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” awards, she got up from her chair and did a little dance. She then promptly went to bed, so in disbelief that she had received it. “Because I just couldn’t believe it,” she said. “You know how sometimes you have to go to sleep and then wake up and see if it’s true?” It is indeed true, and over the next five years, Flowers will be able to use the $125,000 per year to further her cause. While the money is helpful, Flowers is more excited about how it will further her somewhat unglamorous life’s work: human waste management. “This award will help take away the shame of talking about human waste that comes from our bodies,” she stated. The Montgomery, Alabama native has dedicated her life to spreading the news that human waste management is a human rights issue. When human waste isn’t properly handled and remedied, there can be dire consequences. For example, as sea levels rise, more and more people are seeing raw sewage back up into their yards and homes, creating circumstances that can cause disease and illness. The MacArthur fellowships — commonly known as the “genius grants” — have been given out by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for the past 39 years. According to the MacArthur Foundation, there are three criteria for selecting Fellows: exceptional creativity, a promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and the potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. The award is intended to recognize “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.” Winners come from an array of fields, including science, art, teachers, technology, and human rights. Fellows are nominated without their knowledge, and the recipients are decided by a Selection Committee of about a dozen people. The Selection Committee makes its recommendations to the President and Board of Directors. While there are no quotas or limits to how many Fellows are selected, it’s usually between 20-30 each year. Nominators, evaluator, and selectors are all anonymous. Other Fellows this year include: Isaiah Andrews, an econometrician; Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociologist; Paul Dauenhauer, a chemical engineer; Nels Eld, an evolutionary geneticist; Damien Fair, a cognitive neuroscientist; Larissa FastHorse, a playwright; Mary L. Gray, an anthropologist; N.K. Jemisin, a speculative fiction writer; Ralph Lemon, an artist; Polina V. Lishko, a cellular and developmental biologist; Thomas Wilson Mitchell, a property law scholar; Natalia Molina, an American historian; Fred Moten, a cultural theorist and poet; Cristina Rivera Garza, a fiction writer; Cecile McLorin Salvant, a singer, and composer; Monika Schleier-Smith, a physicist; Mohammad R. Seyedsayamdost, a biological chemist; Forrest Stuart, a sociologist; Nanfu Wang, a documentary filmmaker; and Jacqueline Woodson, an author. Flowers was most excited to tell her children and grandchildren about the award. Her life’s work to fight for better sewage systems, while not the most exciting job, is finally being recognized for its importance. “That was very, very special to me and moving to me at this point in my life,” she said. “I think it’s important that young people see examples and get inspired.”
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Trump tweeted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “not negotiating in good faith.”
Inside the Statehouse: The story of the Dixiecrats and 1948 Truman election as President
Steve Flowers tells the story behind the 1948 Presidential election, which resulted in a historic upset by Harry Truman.
