People incarcerated in jails and prisons like the California Institution for Men (CIM) for doing harm to others are key members of R&RA’s community.
People outside prison walls who have been harmed are also key members of our community. The victims and survivors with whom we walk and talk are in homes and neighborhoods, on the streets, and in their places of worship, workplaces, and schools.
And sometimes – too often – those who have done harm are also, themselves, victims and survivors of earlier harm and trauma.
Here are a few stories from some of the Restoration & Resilience Alliance’s organizational partners in our community.
Building Bridges Through Art: Where We Started
Before the Restoration & Resilience Alliance was founded, our staff were already reaching out to hold restorative justice sessions (such as this one at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, CA) with artists in California state prisons to highlight their talent and creativity. This collaboration, which now reaches into R&RA, promotes the talent of incarcerated artists and demonstrates their imagination and creativity.
Connecting Community & Art: Covina Community Church (United Church of Christ)
Brokenness, by Albert Mondragon
Covina Community Church, a United Church of Christ congregation, is R&RA’s first and closest community partner. Rev. Nora Jacob, R&RA’s President/CEO, serves there as its Minister of Social Justice. Covina CC supports that work in various ways, one of which is by offering other church congregations a “lending library” of prisoners’ donated artworks (in reprint form) along with sermons by Rev. Lee Yates, Pastor, that align with the art’s themes. Several congregations use these for a modest fee, which Covina CC uses to replicate more art. The R&RA supports these opportunities, highlighting art's profound meaning in imprisonment.
The Power of Artistic Expression in Prison
Art provides comfort, passion, and inspiration. Those in prison use available materials to express pains, sorrows, outrage, joys, and hopes through images drawn from their own stories and dreams. The Restoration & Resilience Alliance seeks to amplify these voices.
Sentenced in Two Different Worlds,
by Arnulfo Vargas
TEXT: “Every 92 seconds that is how often a woman is sexually assaulted. Every 9 seconds a woman is beaten. Every 9 months the person has a child.”
Resolution, by Jorge Luna
Multi-Church Collaboration in SoCal:
"Gallons of Love"
R&RA, along with Covina Community Church (UCC) and other congregations around Southern California, has prepared holiday care packages in 2024 and 2025 to share with incarcerated individuals housed in several California state prisons, including California Institution for Men and California Institution for Women.
This annual event has taken place for the past two years so far of this annual event have gone very well! Thanks go to everyone who volunteered their time and efforts to show the men and women in these prisons that we love them and are rooting for their healthy and successful return to the community.
Packages delivered!
Restorative Justice Library
To commemorate Restorative Justice Week in 2025, the Restoration & Resilience Alliance joined leaders from Covina Community Church (UCC), the Southern California-Nevada Conference (SCNC-UCC) of the United Church of Christ, and California Institution for Men, along with more than 60 incarcerated restorative justice students in R&RA classes, on November 19, 2025, to unveil a new Restorative Justice Library within existing library space at its Facility C.
Using a grant awarded by SCNC-UCC to the church, Covina CC has donated approximately $2,500 to purchase and donate 110 new educational volumes (some of them multiple copies, anticipating demand) on Restorative Justice topics. In keeping with prison regulations, all of these volumes are paperback, to be received directly from authorized vendors only.
This donation expands the Restorative Justice research and practice resources for incarcerated persons to use. Special thanks once again to the SCNC-UCC Conference and Covina Community Church for their generous support.