Chaffee County Women Who Care donate $10,500
Full Circle Restorative Justice (FCRJ) was awarded $10,600 by the Chaffee County Women Who Care toward the new Transformative Community Conversations program. Many groups and individuals in Chaffee County have been and continue to ask for restorative services for conflicts and important community issues that need thoughtful discussions and resolution. Schools are looking for ways to engage students and deal with behavioral needs and conflicts that do not isolate and stigmatize young people and push them further down a path toward incarceration. And our justice system partners are in need of support for victims and defendants in our county that need an alternative to detention, jail and prison.
“We must approach conflict, harm and crime caused to us and by us with an approach that does not further create violence and aggression,” says FCRJ Executive Director, Kimberly Parker. “Restorative practices humanize and develop empathy; the ripple effects are generational.”
FCRJ services and programs increase the health and safety of the community through restorative prevention and intervention. This new program allows for the opportunity for FCRJ to be the center for conflict transformation in Chaffee County.
The City of Salida recently received a micro grant from the Restorative Justice Council to hire FCRJ to facilitate important community conversations arising in various local convenings. As a result of these conversations and requests from all those mentioned earlier, the Transformative Community Conversations program was birthed. And now, with the support of the CCWWC, FCRJ will be able to offer restorative justice facilitated community dialogues to transform conflict all across Chaffee County and into the future.
We have experienced lives transformed with our restorative justice participants during cases referred by the district attorney and municipal courts. We see first-hand the tears and changed lives of students who open up in our safe restorative circles about what is happening in their lives that lead to a violent or harmful action. “Imagine what we can accomplish when we expand our restorative work, with the support of community members, elected officials, service providers and leaders”, says FCRJ Board Secretary, Lesley Fulton.
This CCWWC funding allows FCRJ to show future grantors that the community support needed to sustain the program. The timing is now to capture a moment when many in the community are open and wanting a restorative way to get involved and move in this new year with hope.
Chaffe County women Who Care has given $91,300 to charitable organizations in Chaffee County since its inception in October of 2018. Whether you are a non-profit organization that is interested in how you may possibly receive a donation, or a woman who would like more information about how to become a member, please contact Karen Lundberg at [email protected].