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30 graduate GEO reentry program

KATELYN HIBBARD/Sun-Gazette Colin Smith, one of 30 reentry clients celebrating their graduation from the program, makes reentry staff laugh during his speech at the transition ceremony Tuesday.

A paralegal mom of two children stepped into the spotlight to share her story with a crowd of people gathered for the GEO Group’s reentry transition ceremony Tuesday afternoon at the Community Theatre League.

The woman, Stephanie Rolley, introduced herself as a 2017 graduate of the reentry program who has been sober for nearly three years.

Rolley was pregnant with her second child during her ceremony, a son who she gave birth to in November of 2017.

Not long after her baby was born, he came down with a severe case of pneumonia and

other illnesses that doctors couldn’t seem to cure. They discovered he had a heart defect called a double aortic arch, which was affecting his ability to heal, she said.

“My worst nightmare had come true,” she said. “My first thought was to run to drugs to comfort my pain, like they had so many times before.

“But then I remembered it never comforted me at all, and who would I be as a mother to get high while my son was fighting for his life?” she continued. “One day, while I was holding his hand and watching him struggle, I thought to myself, ‘If he can fight this hard at 2 months old, then I can fight, too.’ “

After two hard months of mother and son fighting together, Rolley’s baby fully recovered, she said.

“He has since grown to be my best friend,” she said.

She encouraged this year’s 30 graduates to remember what reentry taught them and continue honing those skills and lessons throughout the rest of their lives

“My life is chaos, but I love it and I’ve never been happier,” she said. “If you take the tools you learn here and apply them to your darkest days, you can come out even brighter and stronger than before. This disease does not ever have to win.”

Another graduate, Seth Frederickson, delivered a similar message of hope and support.

Fredericks started doing drugs when he was 12, was in and out of jail and participated in “every program the county had to offer,” he said.

In 2010, when he was 19, he managed to stay clean after graduating from drug court. However, things took a turn for the worst when his grandmother, who had cared for him since he was a child, passed away.

“It rocked my world,” he said. “I went back to my comfort zone and started using again.”

He talked about wanting to stop using heroin, but not wanting to change anything else, which “is not possible,” he emphasized.

Eventually, with the help of programming and caring staff members, he found himself desiring more than just being clean — he wanted to change.

“I didn’t want to keep living like this,” he said. “Something had to happen in my life, or I was going to die. I finally wanted to live a normal life. I wanted change, and I started to change.”

Now Fredericks is a certified recovery specialist with the West Branch Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission who works with UPMC Susquehanna Williamsport Regional Medical Center to help overdose patients.

“Recovery is everything to me,” he said. “Change is everything to me. There has to be a change in heart somewhere along the line.”

New graduates of the program also stepped up to the podium.

“I can say now that I know when I leave here, everybody behind me will remember me and, if I need somebody, I can call,” said Janelle Gatz, referring to the reentry staff seated behind her while she spoke.

Gatz became emotional, saying the program helped her realize that she had to, and could, change.

“Before coming here, I not only was homeless, but I lost my children and I lost pretty much everything I valued in my life,” she said through tears, adding she lost many friends who had tried to help her. “Now’s the time to go back and fix those relationships, because I’m clean and sober and I’m understanding now what I did to them. I’ve accepted that my life is too short to throw away on drugs and alcohol. I’ve got two little kids who need me and, if I’m not here for them, nobody else will be.”

Joseph Collins, GEO’s client services specialist, ended the ceremony with a heartfelt thank-you to GEO, his coworkers and all the participants he has worked with before announcing that this would be his last graduation.

Collins said he moved back to the area about three years ago, after suffering two injuries resulting in brain damage.

“When your brain doesn’t work right and you’re trying to re-learn how to turn light switches on and off, the world is a very odd and different kind of place. Even with my problems, Mr. Boughton (Michael Boughton, GEO program manager) was kind enough to give me a shot,” Collins said. “But I believe God has called me to a different path.”

After his announcement, he led reentry participants and graduates in a reaffirming chant inspired by Jesse Jackson.

“I am the head and not the tail. I’m at the top and not the bottom,” he called, as his clients repeated each phrase. “I’m at the beginning and not the end. I am blessed and not cursed. The god I worship is delighted in me. I have succeeded, I am succeeding, I most certainly will succeed. I am somebody. I am somebody. I am somebody.”

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