This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.
BELLEFONTE — CentrePeace will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Sunday, Oct. 27, at its store at 3047 Benner Pike.
Though it officially began working with returning citizens in 1994, CentrePeace’s origins date back to 1974, when Marie Hamilton started a visitation program at Rockview state prison. After hearing concerns from inmates about stigmas surrounding them, Hamilton felt called to help in erasing the stigma.
“I felt that it was my task to see if I could tear down these walls of mistrust and fear,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton originally started working and creating programs for the Center for Alternatives in Community Justice. It was not until 1994 that they started going by CentrePeace.
CentrePeace has different programs that align with their mission of “working toward restoring lives for individuals who have been incarcerated while bringing peace and healing to all affected by crime.” Their reentry program allows incarcerated individuals to restore furniture that is sold in its thrift store.
“We call them trainees, inmates from the Centre County Correction Facility,” Barbra Squires, executive director of CentrePeace, shared. “The trainees are engaged in cleaning, repairing and restoring donated items.”
Through this, inmates are able to practice skills to help them while being incarcerated and for when they are reenter society.
“The reason we’ve taught this in particular with the wood refinishing is when they get out, they get out, they face challenges regarding getting jobs,” Squires said. “We all see free furniture sitting beside the road that’s still valuable that they could throw in their car take it home refinish it and sell it.”
However, this is just one of the many programs that CentrePeace has to help benefit families and incarcerated individuals.
They have a Christmas card program where children can create artwork on Christmas cards for current inmates. Along with this, they have programs to help families visit their loved ones who are currently incarcerated. CentrePeace was also home to one of the largest inmate volunteer efforts in the world.
“The inmates wanted to raise money to help youth, so they wanted to do a marathon,” said Hamilton. “It turned out to be the Pennsylvania Prison Runathon and for 20 years was the largest inmate volunteer effort in the world.”
However, it took CentrePeace a long time to grow to what it has now become. Hamilton discussed that one of the biggest challenges was being respected by the prison workers.
“It took us about 10 years of going into the prisons before we were really respected,” Hamilton said.
The CentrePeace 30th anniversary celebration is from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27. There will be events and activities for people of all ages along with a tour of the building and the chance to meet Hamilton.
There will also be two food trucks, Farmstead Fusion and Bar-Bee’s. Some of the current members of the reentry program have been creating products for the upcoming event including coasters, cutting boards, charcuterie boards, coat racks and more.
For more information on CentrePeace, visit centrepeace.org.
