Autumn Years Summer 2023

“Our successes include going to court with our clients as advocates and talking to attorneys and judges,” she says. At first they see a case on paper, but Bonnie wants them to know who the person is and what may have led them to court.

grant in 2019 from the Department of Community Affairs,” Bonnie says. So far, so good, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, the jail closed to visitors. Bonnie’s staff decided to keep serving their clients. “We have people who are homeless and not in the shelter, couch-surfing, on the street, with no address; but we collected mail for over 100 people, and they needed their mail,” Bonnie says. As staffers isolated at home, she went to the office to help people also get bus passes or enroll them in benefits such as food stamps or Medicaid, which gets them a free phone. “Our successes include going to court with our clients as advocates and talking to attorneys and judges,” she says. At first they see a case on paper, but Bonnie wants them to know who the person is and what may have led them to court. She adds, “This keeps people going. The deaf, the undocumented person who doesn’t know the system, a developmentally disabled person or victims of domestic violence. Our clients these days come from (state) prison also and were in for serious charges—we don’t turn away people based on what they did, we’re there to keep them going.” Keeping them going means under standing that “90 percent of people we deal with have mental health problems, and that combined with substance abuse is terrible,” Bonnie says. “We need to work with people to deal with the trau ma in their lives. Something happened to make people the way they are and do

what they did. I’ve dealt with so many different types of people. I have to be a chameleon now. I have to express em pathy with whatever people are dealing with. We’ve trained our staff to under stand that. People are innately good but something happens to trigger what they do. The psychology is interesting, but we have to pick up the pieces and help people put their lives back together. People are not their crime. We have people in their 70s who’ve been through the system.” In a “Steve Audubato UNCUT” interview, Bonnie says that “the justice system isn’t always just—some agreed to a sentence when not totally guilty.” H er ability to sympathize with the challenges others face comes in part from medical challenges she and Rick faced. During the COVID pandemic, he was diagnosed with cancer and got laid off. Bonnie, coping with mul tiple sclerosis and needing another spinal surgery (she had to be revived during one surgery), describes that time as a rough period. “I asked ‘why me, why me?’ then I slapped myself and said ‘I can handle this.’ God doesn’t give you anything He knows you can’t handle, so we accept it and move on.” Rick developed other health problems, but their attitude was that things will be fine. (He has returned to work.) Ever the chameleon, she thought that during Rick’s illness she would have to supplement their income and decided to become a realtor, going to real estate school while working

a thing. Others shared the vision and vol unteered. One was a man who’d been with PSE&G and had been in prison,” Bonnie says. He became the facility manager as the organization established a working space and suggested contacting Fairleigh Dickinson University for furniture, since it was retrofitting a school. They got as much furniture as they needed, augment ing their office needs at yard sales. In the beginning volunteers included Karen Brocklehurst, formerly an executive director for a large non-profit, who had just moved back to New Jersey from New Mexico. Bonnie and Karen connected even though Bonnie told her “I can’t pay you.” Bonnie also used the talents of probation officers upon their retirement. The non-profit added volunteers who helped train inmates at the jail in janitorial skills and offered art therapy in the female units. Bonnie knew she needed more than her valuable volunteers. Karen, who now is the organization’s assistant director, suggested going to the Legislature for funding. Bonnie says the Legislators listened with a “what’s in it for me?” attitude until they made inroads with former sheriff and New Jersey Sen. Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen). “He asked ‘what do you need?’ We asked for $265,000, and received our first state

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AUTUMN YEARS I SUMMER 2023