Rotary Club of Wilsonville

Rotary Club of Wilsonville contributes to the women at Coffee Creek in the form of a family picnic. The TACE, an acronym for Through A Child’s Eyes, the program facilitates bonding opportunities for inmate mothers and their children, with a goal of encouraging more positive relationships between them, both while the women are at Coffee Creek and after they are back with their children.

The TACE picnic was a day to be treated like a normal citizen. The Rotary members interacted with the women inmates and their children with manners and humor. My children and I cuddled on a bean bag chair. We read Run Away Bunny and Good Night Moon, the books from their disrupted childhood, without limitation or punishment. Years later, after I was released, Haley and I talked about the picnic. Haley said, “I remember watching you eating a slice of watermelon. The tears just rolled down your cheeks.