Saturday, July 12th

Most of the guys walked to the prayer meeting today. Took about an hour and 29 minutes. Nate shared out of Acts, and we prayed for the body, ministries, brothers and sisters. Afterwards, Mike C. and Mike P. went down to Carmel Presbyterian church to meet with several church leaders that have a heart for prison ministries and re-entry programs for parolees. They meet on a weekly basis. Joe Avila, Executive Director of Northern California/Nevada/Hawaii Prison Fellowship ministry, was there for just a few hours. There was talk about a re-entry opportunity that Monterey County has in the old Natividad Hospital for a 500 bed re-entry facility. Here is a link to an article in the Californian explaining the opportunity.

Mike Casey's heart is to have the county recognize, and subsequently support, faith based programs like The Bride for funding opportunities and also for recognition that they are effective. The issue that Mike has is that programs like The Bridge are not recognized for funding through the county, like other programs are, because of their faith-based position. The Bridge is disqualified for this reason. We recently spoke with a local grant providing organization, and they showed a similar stance.

There will be a Town Hall meeting in the not too distant future about the funding ($80m) for the Natividad re-entry program. Please stay tuned as we will continue to look at this issue....