The Terry Harris Endowment Fund’s latest donation to Freedom Ministries is helping bring hope and a touch of humanity to people experiencing incarceration in Kingston, creating impact well beyond prison walls.
Terry Harris, founder of the Terry Harris Endowment Fund, established the endowment with his wife, Dawn, after decades of work in social justice and prison ministry. “As a child, I was never supposed to walk, talk, read, or write, or go to a regular school. Through the many supports I’ve had over the years, I was able to do far more than the doctors had predicted,” Harris shared.
He credits the encouragement and support of community for helping him defy early expectations. His personal journey inspired the creation of the fund. “Many of the stories of people impacted by incarceration dovetailed with mine. I too was never supposed to go anywhere or do anything. But incarcerated people, with mentoring and with support, can overcome the stigma of having been incarcerated and thrive.”
The need for sustainable support for people during and after incarceration, and for their families, was clear. “There are lots of good ideas for families of prisoners and people impacted by incarceration, but there wasn’t sustainable support or funding. That’s one of the reasons we started the endowment fund,” Harris said. Dawn Harris recalled how a friend’s faith in their vision provided the initial seed money.
This year, the fund’s support is helping Freedom Ministries deliver “sunshine bags,” holiday gift packages filled with chocolate, to 3,000 people incarcerated in Kingston-area facilities.
“If we treat people like monsters while they’re in prison, we can’t expect them to be well adjusted, productive citizens they get out,” says program manager Dennis Chadwick. “We want them to come out better, not worse, than when they went in. It’s hard to imagine that a chocolate bar can do that, but it’s a meaningful gesture. People will remember how they got one for years.”
For Terry and Dawn Harris, the initiative affirms dignity and plants seeds of hope. “Your past does not have to dictate your future,” Harris said. “Gestures like this can ripple outward, like a stone dropped into a pond, and influence how people see themselves and how they choose to act upon release.”
