Yoga got Cynthia Cherry through prison. It kept her sober and focused on staying out of prison once she was released. Throughout her incarceration, she practiced and dreamed of becoming a yoga instructor. The end of this month will mark her one-year anniversary of being released from prison and she has more to show for it than most, thanks to The Reentry Initiative, TRI.
TRI is a Boulder County nonprofit organization that supports individuals reentering society from incarceration with services including an eight-month pre-release course at Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, DWCF, a transitional home for women on parole and post-release wraparound services. TRI helps parolees obtain essential needs as they transition from incarceration to life in society, according to TRI’s website.
Cherry was one of a dozen inmates at DWCF last year to be eligible for TRI’s pre-release course, TRIumph, which includes individual therapy sessions, workshops on life skills and job preparation, transitional planning and post-release services. Cherry was also one of three women to be eligible for the TRI transitional house, a home in Longmont where parolees can stay from six months to two years before finding their own housing.
“I was extremely lucky,” Cherry said. “They’ve just done a world of good for me. Somebody checks up on me once a week to make sure I’m still doing good. If I need anything, I feel like they’re there.”
After her release, Cherry found a job cleaning houses in Longmont with the family-owned company Made 2 Help. Through TRI, Cherry was also able to obtain her yoga teaching certificate from Full Circle and enroll in classes at Front Range Community College for her Master’s degree in yoga, where she is wrapping up her second semester. When the coronavirus pandemic hit Colorado in March, business slowed at Made 2 Help, but Cherry was able to throw herself into full time online classes.
The pandemic changed everyday life at TRI as well. The pre-release course was put on pause when DWCF closed its doors to visitors. The first priority when the facility reopens will be to restart the program, said TRI Executive Director Emily Kleeman.
“We were in there six hours a week. To go cold turkey and then be cut off altogether has been horrible,” Kleeman said. “I don’t know what the mental health situation will be when we can go back, so that’s our first priority.”
Kleeman expected the virus to shut the organization down, she said, but business has been running double time. The Colorado Department of Corrections, CDOC, has been releasing more inmates in recent months, keeping TRI’s Welcome Back Center booming.
“That’s a good thing,” Kleeman said. “It means we’re helping them.”
The CDOC and TRI are checking temperatures and screening parolees on both ends, Kleeman said. TRI also adapted to COVID life by creating a fund for cell phones and other technology so that parolees could communicate and live in this new world. The pandemic changed the system of everyday life, but it didn’t stop TRI from doing what they do.
“I couldn’t have done it,” Cherry said. “Just from getting out of prison a year ago to being a certified yoga instructor and having two semesters of college under my belt and having a job, I don’t know if I would’ve made that big a stride if TRI wasn’t there for me.”
