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Prison society celebrates 230 years

PHOTO PROVIDED Eugene Breisch, left, receives the Pennsylvania Prison Society Official Visitor of the Year award.

The Pennsylvania Prison Society celebrated their 230th birthday on May 3 at the Eastern State Penitentiary Museum, Philadelphia.

At the meeting and award ceremony, Lycoming County resident, Eugene Breisch, PPS official prison visitor, was presented the Pennsylvania Prison Society Official Visitor of the Year award. Breisch has been a weekly visitor to SCI Muncy and other surrounding county jails, chacking on the humane treatment and welfare of the inmates. The award was presented to Breisch by Thomas J. Innes III, PPS president.

Breisch was employed by the Williamsport Area School District as a special education teacher for 25 years. He became involved with the prison society after the organization helped him gain access to a prison to interview on of his former students in 1988. he is now a member of the PPS board of directors and helps support Official Prison Visitors who travel to prisons in the state.

Other awards were presented to officer Major Gina Clark for her persistent commitment and compassionate assistance to juvenile lifers at Graterford State Correctional Institution as they are being released from prison.

The Julia Hall Inmate of the Year award went to SCI Muncy’s Joyce Schofield, an inmate serving life at the prison, for volunteering in activities including Pennsylvania Prison Society membership meetings and hospice care for inmates who have no one available to sit with them in their final hours of life.

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