Iola’s Freedom Ministries is the lead organization in Gov. Sam Brownback’s faith-based initiative, Mentoring 4 Success.
The program recently reached its initial goal of 500 volunteers, including several in Iola who attended a training session here Dec. 10. Helping Tom Bevard, originator and director of Freedom Ministries, locally are the Rev. Steve Traw, Steve and Jean Anderson, Lois Drury and Debra Sager.
Bevard said the statewide program would have volunteers meet with inmates during the year before their scheduled release to help them prepare returning to their communities. Mentors also will keep tabs on recently released inmates for a year afterward to help with any adjustment problems.
Mentors will instruct in life skills, with some of the instruction Bible-based.
Friday afternoon at Salvation Army headquarters in Kansas City, Kan., Karen Swenson, director of the Wheaton, Ill.-based Billy Graham Center’s Institute of Prison Ministries, will speak in a Mentoring 4 Success kickoff event.
“Gov. Brownback is scheduled to speak between 2 and 2:30,” said Beard, who will attend the session with several others from Iola.
Swenson also will lead a series of training sessions in March. On consecutive evenings starting March 10, they will be in Topeka, Wichita, Independence and Kansas City, Kan. Anyone interested in being involved as a mentor may contact Bevard at his Iola office, 101 N. Washington Ave., or by telephone at 620-365-3233.
Bevard has materials Swenson will use to organize and instruct volunteer mentors, as well as access to her website.
Mentors will meet once a month with inmates, either in person or by way of the Internet through Skype.
BEVARD and son Randy have taken ministry teams to all Kansas prisons each of the last 15 years. They and volunteers grill hamburgers, put on a concert of Christian music and evangelize.
The program has drawn statewide attention and is well-received by the Kansas Department of Corrections, which has opened all prisons to the ministry team. Many inmates have embraced Christianity.
This year’s trek from one prison to another will start for the Bevards in May at the women’s prison in Topeka.
