Year-End Donations Doubled!

It’s true! Your special year-end gift to HFP can provide twice the support for

residents in all of Michigan’s prisons! Our goal is to raise $72,000, and those funds will be matched by a team of generous HFP supporters who pledged to match all year-end gifts, starting in November. We chose this goal because the number 72 symbolizes helping others, kindness, and compassion.

Click here to touch the life of a prisoner today, twice!

Thank you for helping us assure all incarcerated persons that they matter!

From the Desk of Doug

Who's an old man?

Not Doug!

Mostly, what I have learned so far about aging, despite the creakiness of one’s bones and cragginess of one’s once-silken skin, is this: Do it. By all means, do it.

Maya Angelou

88 years of age! That’s what November brings to me. A dear friend, who lived to be 90+ and who recently passed away, used to tell me: “Growing old is a privilege! We must not waste it.” I recently read a similar quote from an old guy, still out there swinging fists: “I wasn’t given all of these extra years just to play golf.”

I never retired. To be clear, I am not critical of those who have retired, and who love it. I created HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS when I reached retirement age. Since then, I have learned not only that my first two careers (broadcast journalist and church organ salesperson) were merely preparation for this one, but that this was my calling! I love this work! I love incarcerated people! I am honored to think that God used me to help launch a program of compassion for “the least of these.”

I’m fully aware that I may not be writing this column much longer. But, having battled a staph infection, a heart attack, and colon cancer, I’m still blessed to be working for men and women behind bars every day!

My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,

   but God remains the strength of my heart;

   he is mine forever.

Psalm 73:26

Wronged: The Maurice Carter Story

Film Festivals

The powerful documentary, Wronged: The Maurice Carter Story, will be getting national attention. Grand Rapids filmmaker, Nate Roels, reported that he plans to apply for admission to as many as 12 film festivals around the country! Roels is also the producer of the award-winning film, Behind Our Walls, which received several film festival accolades. Wronged is a 45-minute film that tells how the 9-year fight lead by HFP Founder, Doug Tjapkes, and his friend, Maurice Carter, to prove Maurice's innocence led to the formation of Humanity for Prisoners. It goes on to reveal a new effort to seek a posthumous pardon for Maurice.

Screenings

Numerous dates are already on the books for private screenings of Wronged, according to HFP Executive Director, Mark Hartman. In commissioning Nate Roels to produce the film, our Board of Directors expressed optimism for numerous showings in churches, colleges, service clubs, and private settings. For additional information or to book a screening, please contact HFP at

(616) 935-0075, or at info@humanityforprisoners.org.

In Memoriam

Maurice Carter’s passing was remembered on October 25th. It was exactly 20 years ago that he died, three months after he was released from prison. The Governor granted Maurice a compassionate release, after he spent 29 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Maurice died from Hepatitis C complications before a new liver could be procured. He was 60 years old.

Want to Make a Difference?!

Click here to sign the petition for Maurice Carter's Posthumous Pardon!

Why support HFP? Just ask Prisoners!

From Lakeland CF: I recently attended a National Lifer's Association meeting where HFP's services were mentioned, for which HFP received a standing ovation. On prison yards across this state, Humanity for Prisoners is spoken about in the most respectful way you could imagine. We can never, ever thank you enough for all HFP does or what you all mean to us.

From Thumb CF: I wanna say thank you to everyone there. Thank you for letting us know we're not alone. Thank you for showing us that we matter.

Drug Problems in Michigan Prisons

I don't know what these guys are taking, but they've had a bunch of ODs and supposedly two deaths here in the last couple of weeks. Several in this unit smoke this "Toochie" garbage, have psychotic episodes every few days, and are then returned to their rooms like nothing happened. It's like being in a mental ward, which of course is for the criminally insane. This ratchets up the danger level by numerous factors! To be locked up is bad enough, but to be enslaved within one's own mind to crave this stuff to the point of forgoing one's health? So much worse!

Congrats to Carol!

Our congratulations to Carol Myers, of Holland. Carol and her husband, Dave, have provided significant financial assistance to HFP over the years. The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary, reported that a delegation recently traveled to the Tulip City to present Carol with the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award. It’s an award given to a layperson who has shown leadership and witness to the Gospel within their ministry setting. He reported that VTS has the largest and finest collection of St. Nicholas themed items, thanks to a gift from Carol.

Back to College, Back to Prison!

HFP Executive Director, Mark Hartman, a graduate of the Calvin Prison Initiative, recently appeared on the Grand Rapids campus of Calvin University as a guest speaker. Mark shared the story of his upbringing, early adulthood, life prior to incarceration, life in prison, and what he has been doing since he’s been released. Said Hartman, “It was a result of my incarceration experience that I had renewed perspective and was able to see God’s hand moving in my life.”

Four years after being released from the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Mark went back again a few weeks ago. He may have set a new record! He was there as the representative of a friend and HFP client for a Parole Board hearing. Upon completion of the hearing, in which our Director testified, the prisoner was immediately granted a parole! We know of no other instance where this has happened!

Upcoming Screenings

• 11/3 @ 11:45 am: Ferrysburg Community Church, 17785 Mohawk Dr, Ferrysburg, MI.

• 11/13 @5:15 pm: Cooley Law School, Room 19, 300 S. Capitol Ave, Lansing, MI.

• 11/21 @ 3:30 pm: Wayne State University, Purdy/Kresge Library Auditorium, 5265 Cass Ave, Detroit, MI.

For additional information, please contact HFP at (616) 935-0075, or at info@humanityforprisoners.org.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!  

― Friedrich Nietzsche