On April 10, 2025, Phoenix Odyssey hosted its second annual consortium at the Pawtucket Country Club. More than 70 stakeholders including representatives from the ACI, legislation, community provider agencies, Probation and Parole, and Phoenix graduates came together for discussions to strategize and collaborate to enhance successful reentry. We discussed our unique roles in facilitating successful reentry processes for justice involved people and recognized our graduates who are living proof that success is possible! We also announced our Artists in Reentry event that we will be hosting in August.
We are grateful to RI Parole Board Chair Laura Pisaturo, Representative Cherie Cruz, Damont Combs (poet and Phoenix Project instructor), the remarkable graduates of Phoenix Odyssey, and representatives from many community organizations including RINLA, Amos House, CCRI, the DOC, Small Business Administration (SBA), SCORE, Rhodeway Financial, Building Futures, Center for Health and Justice Transformation (CHJT), Coastal Wellness, Pathways Home and Polaris, the DLT, and the Rhode Island Freedom Collaborative for attending.
Below is a summary of the feedback we collected through a post-event survey:
One of the highlights in the feedback was that we should host events more often. We would love to do this, and we try to do what we can with our limited funding and staff! We would be happy to discuss partnering with other groups to host events in the future. Our next event will be our Artists in Reentry which will be taking place in August! We also received some suggestions on how we could better conduct our discussions next time. Our next event will create smaller and more intentional tables for discussion. Remember our Artists in Reentry event coming in August 2025! Many people, both during the event and in the feedback form, were interested in engaging in legislative action. Because of Phoenix Odyssey’s legal designation as a
nonprofit organization, we cannot directly create programs for this. However, we as individuals can, should, and do participate in advocacy, and we look forward to connecting individuals in these efforts and working with others who are more specialized
in this area. On our feedback form, many people expressed surprise at how many people are in the community working on supporting people in reentry. We are eager to develop these collaborative networks so that we can all work together on our similar goals. One of the main barriers we face in our efforts is in funding; for these ambitious projects, we need funding, and we need to find the right people who are committed to these big – and often challenging – goals. We hope and believe that this event was a step in the right direction.
We are happy to know that people enjoyed the event and enjoyed meeting the variety of people from different backgrounds. We’ll be working on scheduling some smaller strategy meetings on housing, legislative action, and other topics we discussed at our event. If you’re interested in participating in these, please let us know – as we discussed during our event, we have power in our numbers!
Bobby speaking to the group
Representative Cherie Cruz
Roundtable Discussions
