ABOUT US

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Tell the Story is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit located in Akron, Ohio. We facilitate programs for currently or formerly incarcerated individuals, focused primarily on education and work in the language, visual, and performing arts.

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HISTORY

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In 2014 our executive director, Ben Seeley, began a volunteer arts program within Grafton Reintegration Center (GRC) and Grafton Correctional Institution (GCI). It was a basic arts instruction program that worked through several disciplines in the visual and language arts that included drawing, painting, sculpture, short stories, poetry, and performance art (spoken word). The program received numerous accolades from the administration of each facility and a request to continue the work with their residents.

 

What became very clear while working in these facilities was that the facilities themselves were unable to provide these types of programs on their own.  The facilities are extremely underfunded, short staffed, and the staff they are able to maintain do not have the training to run an effective program.

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Research has continually demonstrated that lack of education and poverty are inextricably linked.  This is especially apparent in our underprivileged communities where, not coincidentally, the arts are nearly absent.  Education in the arts has been drastically reduced or even eliminated in many of the poorer school districts where the majority of those who are incarcerated received their education.  The people incarcerated in our prisons deserve a chance to experience this type of learning.

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The criminal justice system in this country is not difficult to fall into, but it is an extraordinarily difficult system from which to emerge.   The current rate of recidivism is estimated to be about 29%.  The belief that a person can successfully return to society after being incarcerated without being given the opportunity to grow and change as a person is a complete absurdity.  As more and more research is being completed and anecdotal evidence corroborates, it is becoming abundantly clear that expressing oneself through the visual arts and the knowledge of oneself gained through the language and performing arts are incredibly effective tools in the process of personal growth. Tell the Story provides a mechanism to facilitate this learning and growth.

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People can and do come out of prison better citizens.  We believe in helping them do just that.