The Pollen Initiative, an nonprofit, hosted its Third Annual Gala to help support and launch new prisons media centers across California and the nation. The San Quentin News, Mule Creek Post, and the Central California Women’s Facility’s Paper Trail are financially sponsored by Pollen Initiative.
Some of the fundraiser goals are to hire professional teachers, maintain social media and websites of prison publications and to cover the cost of printing prison publications.
“You have to change the hearts and minds of people, and this is what these media outlets facilitate for us,” said Jesse Vasquez, Pollen Initiative Executive Director and former SQNews editor in chief at the event. “When I was in that prison cell with no hope, no purpose and no opportunity, the only thing that I knew how to do was live in darkness, and I didn’t care about coming home. I really don’t know why they let me out but… (audience laughs and someone from the audience yells ‘We know’).
“Over the course of my time inside of those prison walls, I started noticing and changing because of the information that was accessible to me,” Vasquez added.
Andrew “Boots” Hardy, former Layout Designer for SQ News and currently a Five Keys participant spoke at the early Fall event. Hardy started volunteering by writing for San Quentin News during the pandemic. He was hired full time after the pandemic and said that his entire world-view broadened almost immediately.
“San Quentin News covers more than criminal justice. The paper brings to life the rehabilitative programs and opportunities and resources available to men just like me, men who desperately need change,” said Hardy.
“Victim advocacy, education, recovery from addiction and trauma, employment and empowerment, sports and physical wellness.
“With SQNews’ law enforcement forums, I’ve sat in focus groups with San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and other law enforcement, seeking ways to address crime before it happens. I’ve shaken hands with Governor Gavin Newsom, even watched him autograph my work. I’ve hung out with Kamau Bell and professional athletes from the 49ers to the Warriors. Our newspaper is an award-winning feat in and of itself,” Hardy added.
Awards were also given out at the gala, Anna DeLuna Ferguson, Chief of Staff at Edovo, a non-profit organization that provides educational, vocational, and rehabilitative curricula and content to incarcerated people won the 2024 The Sam Robinson Champion of Community Annual Award. Ferguson was honored for her leadership in providing Pollen with a new platform that helped its prison content reached over 850,000 correctional facilities nationwide.
“We are deeply grateful for her role in creating this important outlet for Pollen’s work,” said Vasquez.
The Sam Robinson award is one of the highest honors from the Pollen Initiative, recognizing transformative contributions to the lives of the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, and their families.
Robinson is a retired San Quentin captain and was the public information officer that help guide SQ Media Center to its prominence. He has an unique and warm leadership style and meet people “where they are” and provides space for people to grow.
San Quentin News volunteer Jan Perry received The Loyalty to Humanity Lifetime Achievement Award. Perry has been volunteering for the paper for eight years. The recipients of this award embody unwavering loyalty to the betterment of humanity, consistently striving to foster hope, growth, and positive change.
The event also held a silent and live auction which featured sport events, trips and prison art donated by some SQ residents. Hardy auctioned off his prison guitar that he used to write songs and perform with at SQ concerts as part of the fundraiser.
“That guitar was my therapist for most of my prison term, helping me cope with the isolation of covid, the loss of both my parents, and the stresses of prison life,” said Hardy.
More than 150 formerly incarcerated supporters, activists, administrators and community members came together for the event.
“They, like us, believe in the power of prison journalism to not only change lives inside but inform policy outside,” said Veronica Roseborough, Pollen Initiative Communications Coordinator. “We are excited by the prospect of bringing prison journalism to other facilities across the nation so that they, like San Quentin News journalists have done for decades, can rewrite the narrative around incarceration.”
