America Magazine Video Shoot - Preview, April 2018
On Thursday, January 25, 2018, America Magazine visited the Thrive For Life offices to interview Zach for an upcoming article and video. America Media has been a great organization and partner, and we look forward to seeing the full video and article!
ConBody @ Xavier HS, December 2017
On Monday, December 11, 2017, Coss Marte of ConBody visited Xavier High School for “A Workout for Your Mind and Body.” Coss, who sits on the Thrive For Life Board, led students and faculty in a high-intensity, prison-style workout after giving a powerful talk about his experience.
Zach F. Presutti, SJ @ the Jesuit Annual Gala, April 2017
America Media, July 10, 2018
How one Jesuit is transforming inmates and fighting the criminal justice system
By Olga Segura - July 10, 2018
“What the organization really seeks to do, at the core of it, is [to promote] this basic assumption that people are born to thrive in life,” Mr. Presutti says. “People aren’t defined by the worst thing they ever did—they’re defined by who they are as created beings and people loved by God.”
The Harvad Crimson, March 26, 2018
Harvard's Culture of Condemnation
By Lorenzo Manuelli - March 26, 2018
One of our volunteers, Lorenzo, wrote a fantastic op-ed for the Harvard Crimson this month, “Harvard’s Culture of Condemnation.”
"As someone who worked in New York City’s jails and prisons, including Rikers Island, through the Thrive For Life Prison Project, I expected to continue my work in this area when I arrived at Harvard by exploring ways to work within Boston’s penal system. When I arrived in Cambridge, however, I came to the horrifying realization that what I experienced in dealing with America’s broken criminal justice system could also be found right in my backyard at Harvard."
America Magazine, Feb 7, 2018
Limiting human contact for prisoners is counterproductive and un-Christian
By Joe Van Brussel - February 7, 2018
The net effect of these policies is a reduction in human contact and interaction for those who are incarcerated. They stem from a mindset that is contrary to respect for human life and dignity—a mindset that prisons are warehouses and the corrections system is a business. But our society cannot afford to treat the least among us as less than or as the “other.” We at the Thrive For Life Prison Project, a prison ministry rooted in Ignatian spirituality and Catholic social teaching, believe that any policy that increases the distance between the imprisoned and those who love and support them is contradictory to the concept of rehabilitation, un-Christian and ultimately inhumane.
Jesuits.org, April 10, 2018
Jesuit Zach Presutti’s Thrive for Life Prison Project Finds Light in Dark Places
By Mike Benigno - April 10, 2018
Walter’s seven months in prison began and ended with a prayer. He had moved to New York from his home country in Europe a year after graduating college. After losing his job and apartment to addiction, he was homeless and high on a January night. With nowhere left to go, he wandered into a church. “When you’re in addict mode,” Walter would later say, “your spiritual life is non-existent.” Yet he prayed that night, for the first time in so long. Several hours later, he was arrested for drug charges and had handcuffs around his wrists.