Residents find hope in a safe home

The transitional home is geared toward helping women restore their lives.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
SHARON, Pa. -- Teresa Kitt will have her first sober Christmas in 28 years thanks to a letter she wrote last year.
Lodged in the Mercer County jail in September 2004 on a drug charge, the 46-year-old crack addict had been in out of the prison system for 28 years. Desperate for help, she wrote a dozen letters to local churches, describing her life and asking for help in turning it around.
Her only response came from Lynda Moss-McDougall, a member of the New and Living Way Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in Farrell. Moss-McDougall remembered, "I was in Bible study and the assistant pastor's wife gave me the letter. I opened it and just began to weep." The letter, she said, "let me know I was on the right trail."
Moss-McDougall had felt moved for some time to help drug-addicted women in the community but was unsure how to fulfill her vision. Two days later she got permission to visit Kittat the jail.
"She told me 'God loves you,'" Kitt recalled. "No one ever told me that before. And it just went from there."
Kitt was sentenced to a prison term but kept in contact with Moss-McDougall. And this month, Judge Thomas Dobson of Mercer County Common Pleas Court granted Kitt probation, allowing her to live at the Sankofa House for Women Inc., the area's first transitional house for nonviolent female offenders. Moss-McDougall is the founder and executive director.
Sankofa is a West African word meaning "looking backward to move forward."
Two residents
One of the first two residents of the house, Kitt says she is looking forward to Christmas -- the first in six years that she has not been locked up.
When she was growing up, both of her parents were alcoholics, and Kitt said she never knew a normal home. Without Sankofa House, she said she would have been released back into her old environment and "I'd probably be back on my addiction by now."
Instead, she has found at the home a wellspring of love and support. Volunteers from local churches take her for various types of counseling, doctor's appointments, and to church. Someday, she said, she would like to become a substance abuse counselor and work with female juvenile delinquents.
She called Sankofa House "a very true blessing in the Mercer County area."
Brenda Thorpe, 47, also a crack addict, was in and out of jail and prison for years for forgery and selling drugs. On her release from prison in October, she was referred to Sankofa House and is trying to rebuild a normal life. She recently was reunited with her son, who is serving in Iraq.
Thorpe said her addiction stemmed from "going along with the crowd" and recalls that she used to return her children's gifts that she had in layaway to get money for drugs. This week, she was baking a variety of cookies at Sankofa House, and looking forward to spending Christmas Day with family members who have welcomed her attempts to make a new life.
Founder's story
Moss-McDougall's desire to start Sankofa House grew out of a compassion for addicted, incarcerated women. A Sharon native, she recalled that as a young woman she worked for the federal government in Washington, D.C., for 12 years. While there she had a "devastating incident" occur in her life, one still so painful she declines to give details. "I got bitter with God," she said. She also began using crack cocaine to cover her pain.
But she returned to Sharon, found spiritual support and got her life together. She became a youth adviser at the Penn State University Extension and met young people whose parents were incarcerated, sparking her interest in helping them.
Later, Moss-McDougall's adult daughter got into trouble and also spent time in prison. Women ex-convicts face overwhelming challenges. Sankofa House literature states that 33 percent of female offenders return to prison within three years, 52 percent need intensive drug and alcohol treatment, and 50 percent were using drugs or alcohol at the time of the offense for which they were incarcerated.
"Three or four years ago, God began to reveal to me that I would be working with women who had drug and alcohol problems get back into the community," she said.
After searching for some time, last spring, she found a rental house in a neighborhood here. She also has obtained a minigrant from the Sharon Community Foundation as well as some funding from the Sharon/Farrell Weed & amp; Seed program, and help from "partners" in local agencies and community groups and private donations.
In addition, a coalition of volunteers from local churches provide daily help for the program. Her long-term goal is to secure a vendor's contract through the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, which would pay a per-diem rate to house women at Sankofa House.
Right now, volunteers and donations are needed. For more information, contact Moss-McDougall at (724) 981-5701, e-mail her at lkm109@adelphia.net, or visit the Web site at www.thesankofahouse.com.