The Petey Greene Prisoner Program
Your decision to elect the Petey Greene Prisoner
Assistance Program the recipient of your Class Service Initiative has changed
the lives of so many. Founded on the idea that service to others enhances
the lives of all involved, the Petey Greene program has helped hundreds of
incarcerated young men and women continue their education while in prison, to
enable them to build new lives upon release.
Indeed in the 2013/14 academic
year, the 120+ Princeton University student volunteers who made a total of
941 prison visits have reported that for many of them, participation in the
program was the highlight of their week.
Here's just a selection of what our dedicated student
volunteers have said:
"This has been my most rewarding extra-curricular
experience at Princeton. It has transformed my perception of the criminal
justice system. I hope to make a positive difference to this system in the
future." - Clare Herlog, Princeton class of 2011
"The Petey Greene Program is the most rewarding part
of my week. This puts Princeton students and inmates together, and I genuinely
do feel that I've learned a lot from them and have been much more grateful for
the opportunities in my life as a result." - Chloe Bordewich Class of
2012
Our student volunteers are the heart of this program. Their
weekly commitment, to helping others despite the rigorous demands of
coursework, has been recognized widely in the 2013/14 academic year:
-
Joe Barrett, '14 was awarded the 2014 Moses Taylor Pyne Honor
Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an
undergraduate. The Pyne Honor Prize, established in 1921, is awarded
to the senior who has most clearly manifested excellent scholarship,
strength of character and effective leadership. Previous recipients
include the late Princeton President Emeritus Robert F. Goheen, former
U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Joe is the recipient of a Puttkammer Fellowship which will send him to
Boston to establish a Petey Greene Program among the colleges and
universities in that city.
- The newly-formed student organization
SPEAR (Students for Prison Education and Reform) was just named the
recipient of a 2014 Santos-Dumont Award for Innovation. The Alberto
Santos-Dumont Prize for Innovation recognizes a unique and
creative program, event, initiative, or project from the past academic
year which has had wide-reaching impact and visibility.
- In April 2014, SPEAR
held its first national conference "Building a New Criminal Justice:
Mobilizing Students for Reform" which drew over 180 policy makers,
students, government officials, researchers and community activists
together for a weekend of talks and workshops to share experience
and expertise to help students on other campuses re-create the
dynamic program started on the Princeton campus.
The character and leadership shown by our student
volunteers demonstrates the best Princeton has to offer the world, and we look
forward to watching become the leaders of tomorrow.
Learn More
To learn more about our plans for
expansion, meet our new Puttkammer Fellows, and see the press we've
received this year, visit the
Petey Greene Prisoner Assistance Program website.
