Fourteen years into her 18-year sentence, Felicia discovered that running was no longer a figurative practice, it became literal…and necessary.

Now an IF Project member and speaker, Felicia spent much of her life running from the trauma that consumed her. Sentenced at 18 years old, she recalls attending only two counseling sessions throughout her entire 15-year-and-seven-month incarceration at WCCW. It wasn’t until she signed up for a writer’s workshop offered by The IF Project that she developed the tools to begin facing her fears and addressing her pain.

“Two counseling sessions are not enough to deal with childhood trauma, or the trauma of coming to prison or the trauma that led to it or the separation or grieving of family, so I had to figure out ways to deal with it myself,” explained Felicia. “I was finally at a point where I was ready to deal with some of those things, so I started taking different classes and that started with IF’s writer’s workshops.”

She didn’t get involved with The IF Project when it first started. Unsure of what the program was all about, she acknowledges she wasn’t ready emotionally to deal with “stuff that was lingering within her.” When she finally went to IF’s Writer’s Workshop, it was very emotional.

The first piece Felicia wrote in the workshop was a poem to herself, and found she was able to draw strength and courage from writing. That experience led her to another class - this one about domestic violence - that helped her deal with a lot of unresolved trauma.

“When that started opening up, it allowed me to think and ask myself where I wanted to go, the things I needed to deal with, and what I deal with right now,” said Felicia. “I started dealing with the things I knew I could handle.”

She signed up for more IF writing workshops and classes, including the Health and Wellness course, a 10-week program that focuses on life-planning for physical, emotional, and mental health needs. The goal-setting curriculum was created in partnership with The Women’s Village, a leadership group of incarcerated women at WCCW that Felicia helped form. The decision to take Health and Wellness opened her mind to a world beyond incarceration, and helped her prepare for her return home.

Once she completed all of IF’s programs, Felicia stayed involved with The IF Project as a co-facilitator and member of the Speakers Team, while continually working on herself. She started exploring career options and enrolled in coding classes through the Unloop program. She also joined the WCCW Running Club and participated in their “Couch to 5K, which helps train incarcerated women to go from a sedentary lifestyle to running a 5K in 10 weeks.

Felicia wasn’t a runner. She didn’t play sports while growing up in Tacoma and never even owned a pair of running shoes. She didn’t start running until the year before leaving prison, but once she laced up her first pair of shoes, she felt an immediate connection.

The Running Club met twice a week. They worked with certified coaches that visited WCCW every Friday, and learned about stretching, breathing, pace, and cadence.

“It started with that,” said Felicia. “My goal was to run two laps without stopping and then walk one and then run two. I never thought I would run three miles without stopping, but I did it. Each time I did it, my time got progressively better.”

At the conclusion of the 10-week training period, the Club hosted a 5K, with running bibs and gift bags at the finish line. Felicia completed the 3.2 miles and became part of a core group of runners dedicated to helping newer members. She taught new runners how to stretch when coaches weren’t available and offered encouragement when they felt like quitting.

In February 2020, just as headlines about COVID-19 began dominating news feeds, Felicia was transferred to Helen B. Ratcliff House, a Washington Department of Corrections work-release residence in Seattle. She started participating in Unloop, a WCCW-sponsored coding training program that provides on the job experience and allows participants to build a portfolio while working on programing jobs. She was three days into the program before the office was closed due to the pandemic. Unloop set her up with a laptop so she could work remotely. The opportunity is preparing her for an internship and a future career goal as a full stack web developer, someone who can develop both client and server software.

Monday through Friday Felicia is up at 5:30 am to prepare for her day. In the midst of her training with Unloop, she has also been instrumental in The IF Project’s new virtual venture in programming at HBR, serving as IF’s “in-house angel” by helping to offer IT support so that HBR can continue providing training, classes and virtual programming to its residents. The joint project partnership with the Seattle Police Department, HBR and IF is the first-ever project of its kind in Washington state.

Felicia is working on starting a running club at HBR, similar to what was implemented at WCCW. She has also been immersing herself in reading, another love of hers. She is a self-proclaimed “big romantic” and more specifically historical romances. She discovered the author Colleen Hoover before she left WCCW and admits she can’t put her books down.

After her release from HBR, scheduled for late summer, she plans to focus her energy on graduating from the Unloop program and exploring career opportunities. She recently enrolled in IF’s Mentor Program and was matched with one of our awesome supporters in the tech field.

She has been called a pioneer and leader at both WCCW and HBR, applying what she learned while incarcerated to not only help herself but others. She knew it would be hard, nothing could have prepared her for what she faced in February. Through it all, Felicia continues to focus on preparing for release from HBR but that preparation is extended to others that are reentering into a very different world.

“My reentry transition has been nothing like I expected,” said Felicia. “I waited for almost 16 years for the experiences that I heard about, being somewhat free, being able to walk down a street. However, that isn't what happened. I walked out into a pandemic and now a national crisis. I never could fathom that navigating my reentry transition would be like this.”