Member Stories

kewee

…was only 21 years old when she first went to prison to serve a nearly-14-year sentence. For her entire life, she had been taught not to trust the police.

“They’ve never done anything good for me,” she says. “Even when you try to call them for help, it’s always a mess. There is no trust.”

cherryl

…remembers the first time the pain went away. Chronic pain in her knees was something she had lived with for so long that she didn’t even remember what it was like to not feel it. Born with congenital musculoskeletal defects in her knees, she had learned to live with pain because it was all she had ever known.

Sai

…doesn’t like to sit still, but it’s no surprise when you learn more about her childhood. Before the age of 10, Sai lived in more foreign countries than most people visit in their lifetimes, as she traveled the world with her father - a career military man - mother, and older brother.

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 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.

deniece

In May, 2020, Daniece joined Pallet’s team as a manufacturing specialist. Like most of Pallet’s employees who build the company’s rapid, dignified, and proven shelters, Daniece has lived experience with homelessness, substance use disorder, and incarceration – and knows all too well the challenges people with similar backgrounds face when looking for work.

dallas

As a self-proclaimed "problematic inmate," Dallas confesses that she displayed the same behavior "inside" as she did on the street. For the last five of the 15 years that she was incarcerated at Washington Correctional Center for Women (WCCW), she worked in the law library. At first, her work there allowed her to help people get out of trouble because she could find loopholes.

FELISA

Felisa Bryant says that she had always been a driven individual, but throughout the course of her life she had to learn how to channel that energy in a positive and constructive way.

“Ever since I was a child,” Felisa says, “I always told myself that one day I would become a doctor, or at least have a doctorate degree—I didn’t know in what, I didn’t know how, I didn’t even know why—but I always told myself that I would achieve that dream.”

chelsea

Chelsea Sumpter grew up in Orting, Washington, a “small, one-stoplight town” nestled between two rivers, about thirty miles northwest of Mount Rainier. These days, she says they’ve added a couple more stop lights, but it’s still a “one way in, one way out” kind of town.