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She’s the woman behind the grocery store checkout. She’s a mother of three. She’s a yoga instructor. She’s a bank teller, a fast-food worker. She’s a part-time college student. She’s a fabulous cook. She drives a mini-van and carpools to soccer practice. She’s your next-door neighbor. Truth be told, she could be you; she could be one of us.
Truth be told, somewhere along her life path she made a wrong choice. Truth be told, she was caught and has had to face the consequences.
Lockhart Prison, a federal prison about 30 miles outside Austin, houses 500 of these everyday women, many who have hit rock bottom and are working to get their lives back on track.
And while on their journey, Truth Be Told (TBT), a local non-profit run by Austin women, is extending a helping hand to their neighbors in need behind bars.
Carol Waid and Nathalie Sorrell have been guiding women volunteers since the nonprofit’s founding in March 2000.
“Our mission at Truth Be Told is to provide transformational tools to women behind and beyond bars, and we do this by focusing on the three "C's": Community Building, Communication Skills and Creativity,” Carol Waid says. “All of these are very important to all of our programs, as it is the thread that holds us all together. We stress, ‘You are not alone. Do not try to do it alone.’ ”
Waid speaks from experience. “As a survivor of 17 years of a violent marriage, with the ups and downs that come with ‘the unknown’ of what the day holds, I suddenly became a widow.
“My husband was killed in an auto accident. I knew that life was changing instantly, and I would be free from abuse, but that was a real misnomer – I was my worst abuser.
“I dove into alcohol, to numb the incredible pain and confusion that I was now in. I was a mother of a 14-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son and I had no idea how to live. I remarried shortly after being widowed and became a full-blown alcoholic. At 40, I was going thru a divorce and early recovery.”
It was then that good friend Nathalie Sorrell suggested an intervention.
“Nathalie invited me to come to the prison to tell my story of chaos, confusion, alcoholism, etc. and I never left. Working with women in prison, working with women like me, I found acceptance, love, compassion and a passion for life,” she says.
Nathalie Sorrell started her very first Talk to Me (TTM) class at the Lockhart facility to teach women public speaking skills and help them tell their stories to juveniles on probation. Fifteen women graduated from her 8-week class.
First class graduate Teri Dyer says her life wouldn’t be the same today, eight years out of prison, had it not been for Truth Be Told.
“Growing up, my dad said I would turn out exactly like my mother who was in and out of prison all my life,” Dyer says. “She was in abusive relationships, walked the streets like a prostitute … at the age of 7, I was put in foster care when my mom was taken to jail, and I didn’t come out until I was 18. From then on, I, too, was in abusive relationship after abusive relationship and my life was just really broken. I thought, ‘my dad was right, I am just like my mom,’ ” Dyer says about the hopelessness she felt.
Recalling her three years spent in Lockhart, Dyer says her prison sentence was bittersweet. “I was first charged with attempting capital murder, but ended up being sentenced to 10 years for first degree burglary. It was horrible – you learn not to trust anyone, not to make friends – but in the same light, my time in prison saved me from death. I was in a horrible relationship and would have died, had I stayed with the guy,” Dyer says.
During her days behind bars, Dyer passed the time with Bible studies and weekly classes offered to inmates. TBT began at an opportune time. “I was skeptical at first, but decided to sit in on the first class just to see what it was like. When I challenged Carol (Waid) to stop asking us to share our stories, but instead, to share her story; [that] is when my walls kind of broke down, and I realized, ‘maybe there is something more to this,’ ” Dyer says.
Dyer is no longer shy to tell her story. In fact, she is a spokeswoman for many of the events hosted by TBT throughout the year. “I’m at every story-sharing. In fact, there is even a fundraiser named after me,” she says. “I am the only one in my graduating class that never went back to prison, and I think it is so crucial to share our stories with all people – especially kids. I meet girls who are pregnant, in bad relationships and my heart breaks for them. Kids – teens today – need to learn now, so they don’t end up on the same road I did,” Dyer says.
Dyer’s secret to staying on the road-less-traveled? “Just breathe. Carol gave me a card years ago that just says ‘breathe’ on it, and I carry it everywhere I go,” she says.
Today, the mother of three grown children lives in Arlington with her newlywed husband, dog Scatless and cat Ash. “My animals are my best friends. They are the only ones you can tell anything to and be sure that they don’t tell anyone else,” Dyer laughs. “I’m just content to stay at home. I may not have had the white-picket fence dream every girl hopes for – instead I got the cinder blocks and barbed-wire fence – but everything is coming together. One day at a time,” Dyer says.
3,285 days (or nine years later), Sorrell and Waid see approximately 125 women graduates per year from the ongoing TTM and Short Timing program classes.
They hope that number will continue to grow. “Texas hasn't been really concerned about women in prison – even though they are the fastest growing prison population. Once they are off the streets and out of the headlines, no one keeps up with whether or not they are given new tools, and guided into a new life,” Sorrell says, adding, “Realistically, [we must ask] how can they come out and begin again, instead of passing on their dysfunctional family/prison lifestyle to their children?”
Looking back on the past decade, Waid says she has benefited as much as many of the women in the jail. “Over the last 9 years, I have flowered and bloomed, and I owe it to women in prison, 12-step programs, and most of all, to my children, who lived in violence and the challenges of ‘the unknown,’ that many people can never understand, or comprehend … they supported me as I became a better mother and better human being,” Waid professes.
Today, Truth Be Told’s cofounders believe there is no doubt that, “We can come out of the other side of insanity, and there is no graduation for this, it is a lifelong adventure.
“We work with women, who like me, needed a tender hand to draw them out from dungeons and nightmares,” Waid says.
And looking toward the future, this tag team is focusing its efforts on helping even more women and encouraging more volunteers to join their cause.
There are several ways for local Austin women to plug into the hands-on mission and make a difference like Waid and Sorrell.
“Behind Bars volunteers either come in as graduation witnesses, facilitate Truth Be Told classes, do Toastmaster evaluations, lead a two-hour Exploring Creativity Workshop, share experiences/skills in Carol's Short Timing classes, or participate as performers in God in Human Form program,” Sorrell says. “We also need more information gatherers and board members (a volunteer coordinator, fundraising chair, public relations chair and grant writer), as well as courageous employers for graduates of our program and other organizations to collaborate with. They would help create a supportive network for graduates of our program when they get out of prison.”
“It's worth the stretch to reach into a community so lost from visibility, and find out who is there that you needed to know. It will change your life forever and make you a freer human being and community member,” Sorrell says.
Coming up, on Wednesday, Oct. 7th, local residents are invited to attend the Light of a New Day Luncheon at the Education Service Center, Region XIII (5701 Springdale Road). The free lunch event is an inspirational, one-hour program about Truth Be Told to share the organization’s life-changing stories and rally community support.
Light of a New Day Luncheon
October 7th, 2009
Hosted by Truth Be Told
Education Service Center, Region XIII
5701 Springdale Road
RSVP to office@truth-be-told.org
or call 512.292.6200 by Friday, 9/25
www.truth-be-told.org