Press Release: Bridgeport Pardons Assistance Project Receives $4000 Grant From ABCUSA

The Prison Ministries of

The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport

126 Washington Avenue

Bridgeport, Connecticut 066o4 

PRESS RELEASE:

 Bridgeport Pardons Assistance Project

bpapct.org 

The Prison Ministries of The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport announces that is the recipient of a $4000 Matthew 25 Grant from ABCUSA (the national body of the American Baptist Churches) to fund the Bridgeport Pardons Assistance Project!

We have opened the first pardons assistance office to cover all of Fairfield County (bpapct.org). 


The grant is specifically dedicated to be disbursed to clients to pay for their pardons related expenses such as transportation, police records, finger print costs, etc.
 
The Mission of the Bridgeport Pardons Assistance Project is to combat poverty, from the first day of an ex-offender’s release from prison, through a Culture of Pardons: public service, volunteerism, goodness, dedication, forgiveness, grace, discipline, faith, and family – these are kinds of things an ex-offender needs to obtain a Pardon. 

The BPAP is important for the Fairfield County reentry community because it marks real on-the-ground change borrowed from enlightened criminal justice theory espoused at the State of Connecticut Department of Corrections and by the State of Connecticut Board of Pardons and Paroles (with which dept. we are working closely).

Of course, not every ex-offender and family that applies for a Pardon will be granted one - but great things can and will happen for all who engage the process.  The point is create and engender a Culture of Pardons - the more ex-offenders who are granted pardons, the more we will combat lives of poverty for all ex-offenders and their families.

The BPAP’s objective is to bring professionalism and respect to a process at a time when our clients’ have already been through the most difficult and dehumanizing periods of their lives. Our volunteers have been trained at the State of Connecticut Board of Pardons & Paroles.  

The BPAP is part of a larger mission at the First Baptist Church of Bridgeport to welcome and offer a home to the reentry and recovery communities. We recognize it might be difficult to imagine in some churches - not in ours!  This plan has fully approved by both Senior Pastor Hopeton Scott and the full Congregation of The First Baptist Church of Bridgeport.

"We feel truly blessed in our mission to assist each and every person in the ex-offender community of Fairfield County to engage in a "Culture of Pardons" and to begin the pardon application process as soon as possible.  It is never too early to start the process of spiritual growth and transformation towards what just might lead to a pardon." 

For More Information:  Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div, 
Assoc. Minister / Director of Prison Ministries 
bpapct.org,
126 Washington Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604 jgrant3074@bpapct.org, (203) 769-1096


__________________________

Rev. Jeff Grant, JD, M Div
Director, Progressive Prison Project/
Innocent Spouse & Children Project
Greenwich, Connecticut, USA

Assoc. Minister/
Director of Prison Ministries
First Baptist Church of Bridgeport
126 Washington Avenue, 1st Fl.
Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA 06604

(o) +1203.769.1096
(m) +1203.339.5887
jgrant@progressiveprisonproject.org
jg3074@columbia.edu
progressiveprisonproject.org