A Season of Gratitude-Our Winter 2025-2026 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

It is hard to believe that we are at the close of 2025.

We want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year filled only with joy.

For Partakers, 2025 has been a year of big changes and exciting growth, filled with special moments celebrating the stories of lives transformed.

Despite these often overwhelming and challenging times, we look forward with hope and promise for each one of our students in our College Behind Bars and PEP Reentry Programs.

In the New Year, we will continue to expand our reach, growing our legacy of over 28 years of providing mentors to students pursuing their education inside through our College Behind Bars Program. Our unique relational model has demonstrated that the opportunity for education with Mentor support results in hope, confidence, success, and lives transformed while lowering the rate of recidivism and changing the narrative around what it means to be incarcerated.

Our Reentry Program, the Partakers Empowerment Program (PEP), in partnership with the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative, is celebrating 6 years of amazing stories of reentry. PEP has a unique mission of providing not only skills and training, but also essential mentor and peer support, critical to navigating the difficult and often fraught path of reentry. PEP students are a part of a vital community that will always be there for them as they embark on their new chapters.

At Partakers, we do not believe that anyone should have to make this journey alone. In a time of disconnect, we are working to bridge communities and foster empathy, understanding, and lasting connection.

What makes Partakers stand out from all other in-prison and reentry models? Simply- our Mentors! We know Relationships Matter! Mentors Matter!

We are currently building our Mentor base for both our College Behind Bars and PEP Reentry Program. See below to learn how you can become involved. We hope you will join us for one of our Mentor Info Sessions to learn more about the Power of Partakers Mentoring.

Each day, Partakers supports so many women and men who have been impacted by the carceral system. We are providing opportunities to change the trajectory of their lives, the lives of their families, and the future of their communities.

We simply could not do this vital work without your friendship and support.

Please take a moment to read our 2025 Annual Appeal Letter.

Thank you for always being here for us!

With appreciation and heartfelt wishes for the New Year,

Arthur Bembury, Executive Director