‘Now we have the opportunity to sow goodness’

Sy Green’s parents couldn’t pay for his sophomore year at Palma School. Then a group of inmates at a state correctional facility stepped in to help.

It was an unusual act: incarcerated men pooling their prison earnings to pay tuition for a young man to attend a private high school. But when you probe deeper, it’s clear that a larger purpose was at work. 

In 2016, Sy Green’s parents couldn’t pay for his sophomore year at Palma School, a Roman Catholic boys school in Salinas, California. After medical challenges and job losses, even with the school’s help the tuition was out of reach. Enter a group of inmates at a state correctional facility in Soledad, who wanted to sponsor a student in appreciation for the school’s ongoing prison outreach. They asked teacher Jim Micheletti if he could recommend someone who needed their help.

“I was incredulous,” Mr. Micheletti says by phone. 

For seven years, he has facilitated a book group that brings students together with inmates – many of whom are serving life sentences – involved in intensive self-improvement programs. The discussions start with a book, but evolve into conversations about “dignity, humanity, and liberty,” he says. 

One of the incarcerated men, Jason Bryant, who helped collect more than $30,000 over three years from inmates in his unit, says the men who contributed were eager to add value to someone’s life. “The damage to our victims can’t be undone, and we can make the choice to sow new things into the world. Now we have the opportunity to sow goodness, to sow charity, to sow love,” he told me. 

The inmates had not met Mr. Green before they raised money for his tuition, but once his parents learned about the deed, they and their son visited the prison monthly. Not only did Mr. Green participate in the book group, he also received coaching from the inmates, including Mr. Bryant. “We asked what he wanted for his future and discussed what it would take to get there,” Mr. Bryant says. “We challenged him, we mentored him, we loved him.”

Today, Mr. Bryant, whose sentence for armed robbery was commuted by Gov. Gavin Newsom in March 2020, and four others are out of prison. Four of them work at the nonprofit CROP, which supports individuals inside and outside prison. And they are working on providing another scholarship.

Mr. Green graduated from Palma last spring. He started his first year of college, where he’s majoring in communication and playing basketball. He remains in close touch with Mr. Bryant. He says that with so much invested in him in high school, whenever he was tempted to do less than his best, he knew he had to deliver 100%. “It was extra motivation,” he says.

Editor’s note: A shortened version of this article ran in the Jan. 8, 2021 Monitor Daily.