A downtown Scranton church will start its workplace training program for formerly incarcerated people in January.
Board member Ken Goody hopes Cypress House Bakery at St. Luke's Episcopal Church will facilitate a network of support for some of Northeast Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable residents.
“We are affirming their dignity and their ‘worthwhileness.’ I mean, these folks coming out of prison … they've paid their debt to society,” Goody said during a Wednesday interview at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Scranton.
He said St. Luke’s program, which has been 10 years in the making, aims to build up former inmates’ sense of self-worth.
“In addition to them learning how to bake and manage a kitchen, we're hoping to provide a real, constructive part of their personal recovery journey,” Goody said.
St. Luke’s will host an open house on Friday, Dec. 5 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for the community to tour the church’s newly renovated kitchen and meet criminal justice experts from around the region.
Goody added the open house coincides with First Friday in Scranton, and the church will have snacks and hot coffee for anyone braving the cold.
Pennsylvania and U.S. leads in worldwide incarceration rates
Pennsylvania has the 28th highest incarceration rate in the nation — just slightly behind the country’s national average — and Lackawanna County has the 23rd highest incarceration rate in the state, according to 2020-24 data from the Prison Policy Initiative.
Goody and other Cypress board members say their organization will connect program members to a “community of support.” Alejandra Marroquin, a board member and social worker with the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, said St. Luke’s will create a kind of referral service.
“Most of the individuals (formerly incarcerated people) sometimes have difficult backgrounds, so we want to be a support for them,” Marroquin said.
St. Luke’s, in Downtown Scranton, making it an easy location for participants to get to medical appointments, meetings with parole officers or addiction services, and other needs.
Marroquin said the job training program will focus on helping its participants obtain a PA Certificate in Food Handling alongside supporting their mental and physical health.
“[We] give time for that person to go to that appointment … [unlike] regular employment … This will give space for that to happen,” Marroquin said.
How will the baking program work?
Unlike other job training programs, participants will be paid a “living wage” during their enrollment in the 6-month program. The exact wage could not be confirmed, but board members said it would be around $20 to $22 per hour. Participants will take classes at St. Luke’s four or five times a week and will live in the Northeast Pennsylvania area.
St. Luke’s plans to offer the program twice a year with eight attendees, four in the mornings for classes and four in the evening. The board said it is in the final stages of selecting a baking instructor to run the program and design a curriculum.
Participants will be chosen based on baking and culinary interest.
After training classes begin in January the board hopes to expand its services in the future and possibly add a store or coffee shop where students can sell their baked goods.
St. Luke’s Priest-in-Charge and Cypress’ President and CEO Reverend Tyler Parry said the church will primarily work with Mary Brotzman, a community reentry parole agent who runs the state’s STRIVE program to connect people who would be a good fit.
“As soon as we're ready to go, she (Brotzman) has folks who are in need that she's ready to send our way. [These people want to] be prepared for the employment that they need, but [they] just can't quite get it (steady employment) now because of some things that are holding them back and some skills that they haven't developed yet,” Parry said.
STRIVE, the State Transition Reentry Incentive Validating Endeavors program, is modeled after the federal Court-Assisted Re-Entry program, CARE. Both help formerly incarcerated people who are at-risk of reincarceration adapt to life outside of prison.
For more information on CARE, check out the 2021 WVIA Documentary, A Call to CARE.
Cypress House board member Thomas Vanaskie was one of the first people to start the STRIVE program. He is a former United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and former judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Vanaskie joined Cypress under its former Priest-in-Charge, Reverend Rebecca Barnes, who wanted to connect Pennsylvania’s criminal justice system to a greater network of rehabilitation and re-entry services.
“[We want to provide] a continuum of care. It doesn't end when you sign your papers and you're no longer on parole … We want to have that support network in place afterwards,” Vanaskie said.
National impact: Cypress House Bakery and Homeboy Industries
Cypress House is affiliated with Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries and is part of its Global Homeboy Network, which features partners in several U.S. states and internationally.
Homeboy Industries is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world. Its founder, Father Gregory Boyle, promotes “radical kinship” among its community members and provides an 18-month employment and re-entry program. Participants can also access tattoo removal and substance abuse resources to education services.
Mike Jenkins, a Cypress board member and criminal justice professor at the University of Scranton, said Homeboy Industries and Cypress provides people who are at-risk of reincarceration or are involved in gangs a place where they can feel “safe” and is often the first place where they are seen as individuals.
“Whoever comes through the doors, we see them, and we see the goodness and godliness in them. And that changes the way that they interact [with themselves and other people,]” he said.
“[When people feel safe] those walls come down and they see the humanity in each other as well,” Jenkins said.
Parry emphasized that people do not need to be Episcopalian or Christian to enroll at Cypress House Bakery. He said he does ask that everyone respect St. Luke’s model of kinship.
“We look at people and say, you belong and I belong,” Parry said.
