For 10 years, this Miami nonprofit has helped prisoners find their voices as writers

MIAMI -- Leeann Parker got three things the moment she left prison after almost 20 years: a cool outfit, a hug from her 3-year-old grandson and a tote bag of new books.

Parker, who was incarcerated when her daughters were 5 and 9, said she entered Homestead Correctional Institution angry and bitter. At the end of August, with the help of a local nonprofit Exchange for Change, she left prison a writer. She left with a smile on her face.

Exchange for Change, which offers writing and communication skills-building classes to incarcerated students in South Florida correctional facilities, is celebrating 10 years of education this fall. The nonprofit, founded by former journalist Kathie Klarreich, partnered with the Books & Books Literary Foundation to gift people books as they leave prison. Parker was the first.

“Nobody really cares about you when you get out, especially out of there,” Parker said. “So for me, these books are like somebody finally giving something back to somebody getting out of prison. I’m gonna cherish those books. I’m gonna start my own little library with those books.”

She picked out the following books, including one to read to her grandson Amiri Sams, because the titles stuck out to her: “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Hope in the Dark” by Rebecca Solnit, “Felon” by Reginald Dwayne Betts, “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer and “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver.

“It’s something that I can share with my kids and my grandson,” Parker said. “My love of reading, my love of writing is something that I can give back to them.”

Exchange for Change courses are a judgment-free zone. Instructors don’t ask students about their past or why they’re in prison, Klarreich said. The group’s mission is to empower incarcerated folks with opportunities to publish their writing and courses on different styles of writing, from journaling to journalism, from poetry to memoirs. The group has published four volumes of “Don’t Shake The Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing,” a literary journal of students’ work.

“In the States, most of the incarcerated people don’t have a voice,” Klarreich said. “This was an opportunity to provide them a platform to speak for themselves rather than about themselves.”

Before starting the nonprofit, Klarreich worked as a journalist and spent a total of 13 years reporting in Haiti. Her time there inspired her to get involved with Miami’s Haitian community, and she worked with a local nonprofit to teach writing lessons to incarcerated Haitian women in Homestead. When the catastrophic 2010 earthquake struck, Klarreich was back in Haiti reporting for three years. After returning to Miami, she wanted to get back to teaching.

When she started Exchange for Change in 2014, Klarreich had one class at Dade Correctional Institution, a men’s prison, of 17 students. A decade later, Exchange for Change teaches 25 to 30 courses a semester for 700 students a year across several Miami-Dade institutions.

Running a nonprofit that deals with the prison system is no small feat. The last 10 years felt like 50, Klarreich said, laughing.

“You never know if you’re actually going to get inside, and then when you get inside, you don’t know what you’re going to confront,” she said. “The fact that we’re still here and the fact that a lot of our students, because we’ve been around for so long, are getting out, [it’s] really thrilling. I’ve known a lot of these people for 10 years, and I don’t think either one of us thought that we would still know each other this long.”

Mitchell Kaplan, founder of popular Miami bookstore Books & Books, said the year-old Books & Books Literary Foundation is excited to work with local organizations like Exchange for Change to bring books to communities that need access. That includes incarcerated South Floridians, he said. In the future, he said, the foundation plans to help develop prison libraries and provide children’s books for incarcerated people to read to their kids when they visit.

“Reading is a way of setting you free, to some extent,” Kaplan said. “For people leaving prisons, we need to understand that they’ve paid their dues. We shouldn’t hold it against them once they leave. We should do all we can do to lift them up and help them readjust to the world they’re finding.”

‘A way for you to be out of prison, still in prison’

Parker said she felt that support from Exchange for Change. She reflected on her past and future as she sat at a picnic table at Robert Is Here, a fruit stand just down the road from the prison, sucking on a mango smoothie. Her daughters, Velicia Parker, 27, and Sasha Parker, 22, sat in the shade as Amiri pointed out the animals in the petting zoo. “The chickens!” he said.

“People would come and talk to us from the free world, outside people, and we felt more human,” Parker said. “In there, sometimes you just feel like a number, like you’re invisible. When we would have those visits, it would made us feel grounded because we’re actually having a conversation with the person, and they’re not looking at us like we’re a monster or an animal.”

Parker is proud of how far she has come and is open about sharing her story. Originally from New York, Parker moved to Orlando when she was 12. That same year she got involved in a gang, and by 13 she was selling drugs. She had several possession charges and ultimately ended up in prison on a second degree murder charge at age 24. According to Parker, she and a group of people beat up a man who had raped someone in their crew and he died of his injuries.

Today, 18 years later, she’s 42. Her children are grown. And Parker has grown, too. Some years ago, she learned about Exchange for Change when she noticed others attending classes. “I wanted to get involved in something other than the prison life,” she said.

She didn’t know she was a writer, she said, but she fell in love with the craft. And for a while she didn’t think she was a good writer, until she won a poetry contest. Writing was freeing.

“It was an outlet,” she said. “Like a way for you to be out of prison, still in prison.”

She wrote about these feelings in her poem “Free,” originally published in Don’t Shake The Spoon:

I used to belong to the streets taking problems however they came. Searching for answers I see no end to my pain. Every day it’s the same thing. I need to change my life.

Parker got involved in the program’s Student Leadership Council and forged deep bonds with fellow students, instructors and Klarreich. She started a mentorship program called Positive Shadows and was a peer facilitator for a substance abuse program, she said. Programs like Exchange for Change show people that they can do anything they set their minds to so long as they put in the effort, Parker said.

“We’re human. We made mistakes, and our mistakes don’t define who we are,” she said. “There’s so many talented people in prison that are writers and singers and artists, and people wouldn’t know because they don’t give you the time of day.”

She has big plans for herself now that she’s in the outside world. Parker wants to be a construction worker, get a commercial driver’s license, play with her grandson and keep in touch with Klarreich. Every day for 90 days, she wants to push herself to do something fun, like jet skiing or taking a painting class. And she will continue writing.

When Parker and her family walked through the prison parking lot, Amiri insisted on carrying the bag of new books. It was as big as he is, but he didn’t mind.

“D-Bo!” a woman shouted as she waved goodbye from behind the fence, calling Parker by her old nickname.

Parker held up her grandson on her shoulders and waved.

“Free” by Leeann Parker, published in Don’t Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing

I used to belong to the streets

taking problems however they came.

Searching for answers I see no

end to my pain.

Every day it’s the same thing.

I need to change my life.

Now my life has caught up to me. I am

stuck in a place where there’s

no relief.

Time stands still. I’m losing

it as I speak.

Within these four walls, if

they could speak.

They would tell a story of pain

and grief.

Pulled away from my kids when

They were five and nine,

Now they are growing up without

mommy by their side.

Never knew that my decisions

would catch up to me.

Caved in, chained down, Prison

has made me stronger—

I had to wrestle with my demons

for a little longer.

How can I ask the Lord to spare me

just this one time?

When I know that in my heart

I should be crucified.

____

This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.