My name is Celeste Blair, in Jan of 2016, I was sentenced to 360 months in Federal Prison for a non-violent conspiracy drug offense. My outdate was 2041.
Today, I am waiting on a date for home confinement, having earned my freedom through telling my story, sorting out my life, programming to the fullest, being an active life coach here and through a series of Commutation Petitions, and from building a network of influential advocates. I will have done just over ten years.
It was Amanda Young who first handed me a Workbook, no one here had ever heard of the program. I was so grateful, as I was creating a program where we could help women to foster the spokes of the wellness wheel.
I had been largely motivated to begin the program due to the fact that, so often, I tended the gardens here and just off the Admin. Complex I would be on my knees, sort of hidden from sight, and I would here women crying on the porch. Naturally
I asked what was the matter and their were so many times when the problem was that they were leaving after 10, 20 years and had no idea what they would do. I saw the need and factored in the Interns@PrisonProfessorsTalent program as part of the wellness wheel.
I proceeded to assign mentors with the specific task of helping women to get on the site.
As you can imagine, I was over the moon when I had planned the training seminar with the agenda of training 120 mentors in one afternoon and SANTOS was our special guest! Talk about the universe lining up! Winning!
Hopefully, I documented that as part of my journey as we grew the program over the year. WE are now past our one year anniversary and strong.
Santos is brilliant and one of my heroes!
