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NEWS DETAILS
| 2 groups aiding ex-inmates merge |
| 1/26/2009 |
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(Buffalo News, The (NY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 22--Two nonprofit organizations that provide transitional housing for former prison inmates are joining forces.
Hope of Buffalo, which operates the Bissonette House on Grider Street, Hope Van Service and PeacePrints Nonviolence Ministry, and Cephas Attica, which has Cephas Prison Groups and Cephas House, voted to merge under the name PeacePrints Prison Ministries.
Sharing resources will help them "more effectively reach out to the incarcerated and newly released in Western New York," the groups said.
The plan will allow them to split administrative and functional costs and combine volunteer, outreach and fundraising resources to better serve ex-offenders "with a comprehensive and focused program of ministry," they said.
"We will have an even stronger presence and ability to serve" those individuals, said Brother Michael Oberst, Cephas executive director.
While existing facilities and services will remain in place, the combined organization will expand the development of prison ministries in Buffalo and surrounding communities, as well as Rochester, Oberst said.
The arrangement will further the legacy of Sister Karen Klimczak, who headed Bissonette House before she was murdered in 2006 by a former inmate who was staying there.
After her death, yard signs and bumper stickers shaped like a dove and carrying the PeacePrints message sprouted across the region.
Sister Karen's order, the Sisters of St. Joseph, gave the merged prison ministry permission to name itself PeacePrints. The symbol's powerful message still resonates, and both Cephas and Hope of Buffalo "embrace not just the name but the very meaning," the groups said. Cephas comes from a Greek word meaning "foundation."
One of the first events planned by PeacePrints Ministries will be the annual Phoenix Awards Dinner on March 21 in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. It will honor men and women who have used the help offered by prison ministries to turn their lives around.
tbuckham@buffnews.com
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Copyright (c) 2009, The Buffalo News, N.Y.
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