At 10:50 we arrived at the Refoundry. The Refoundry is a place where formerly incarcerated people can be selected to be trained. They are trained in either two things. Either wood working, of leather working. We were greeted by Emilie Grodman, who we had been in contact with for some time. Over the course of the fieldwork, Emilie showed us around the Refoundry. She explained that at the moment there were only 5 people that had been through the process. They were chosen based not on the crime they committed, but the previous experiment they have had in the craft. They she brought us to a wall covered in hand prints. We were then joined by the two formerly incarcerated that were there at the time. They then did and activity to showcase people were not always what they look like or you would think they would be like. They would go around and the formerly incarcerated people would paint you hand and put it on a piece of wood. The Refoundry made connection to other places such as Shake Shack. They made it so they would be displayed there. It was almost like a team building exercises. Then the two men there kind of gave inspirational speeches saying how the Refoundry helped them and how they regret everything that they had done. They used a table they made as an example. The table had triangles pointing the the center. One of the men compared us to the center of the table saying that everything else was trying to push us in different ways and we had to find the good and get rid of all of the bad. They then gace us little trinkets they made with the name of correctional facilities on them. We returned to school.

This is part of the Refoudry’s Hand in Hand project