Mary Evans
Mary Evans is a Dayton, Ohio-based activist, abolitionist, and journalist. She holds a BA in the Business of Interdisciplinary Media Arts from Antioch College. In 2022 she was awarded the Bob and Norma Ross Outstanding Leadership Award at the 71st Dayton NAACP Hall of Freedom Awards. She has been a Community Voices producer at WYSO since 2018. Her projects include: ReEntry Stories, a series giving space to system-impacted individuals and West Dayton Stories, a community-based story-telling project centered on the people and places of Dayton’s vibrant West Side. Mary is also the co-founder of the Journalism Lab and helps folks in the Miami Valley that are interested in freelance journalism reach some of their reporting goals.
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Mary Evans interviews Patrick Davis of the Fringe Coffeehouse in Hamilton – which is offering a range of much-needed services to formerly incarcerated citizens. -
Kamisha Thomas is a filmmaker, writer, director, co-founder of the Returning Artists Guild in Columbus and a returned citizen. Kamisha was a filmmaker before she went to prison, but finished her short film while she was inside. There were a lot of projects in prison, she says, that helped her continue her filmmaking. -
Today on ReEntry Stories we meet Azizi Carter, the third in our series about women who took advantage of training opportunities in prison and made it a stepping stone to a new life. -
In our latest series of ReEntry Stories, we hear about the lives of four formerly incarcerated women. They all took advantage of an educational program or some kind of skill building project while they were in prison, and for all of them, it was a good first step.Today we meet Amber Richards. Series producer Mary Evans has known her for many years because they were incarcerated at the same institution. While inside, Amber chose to focus her life on recovery from drug addiction. And when she got out, she got involved with an organization called Field of Hope in Gallia County. -
More than 22,000 people are released from prison every year in Ohio, and as re-entering citizens, they face a lot of challenges. This week on WYSO we begin a new series of ReEntry Stories and hear about the lives of four formerly incarcerated women. They all took advantage of an educational program or some kind of skill building project while they were in prison, and for all of them, it was a good first step. -
Returned citizen Afton McClain is an entrepreneur and owner of Afton’s Beauty Pod in Dayton. She’s been out of prison for 3 years and recently voted for the first time in her life for a candidate in the 2020 presidential election. -
Tara Casto has been out of prison for three years and is raising a multiracial family. As she told ReEntry Stories producer Mary Evans, the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement is having a big impact on her life. -
Terry Green had several convictions, which led to his incarceration. Today, he is the CEO of Think Make Live Youth, a nonprofit that mentors inner city youth. -
Returned citizen Aimee Wissman was an artist before she went to prison, and while she was inside, she never stopped making art. After her release, she co-founded the Returning Artists Guild in Columbus. -
Latisha Ellis is a poet, author and recently became co-owner of PoiBois Entertainment, a performing arts group that uses pyrotechnic tools, poetry and music to spread the message of community building. We met Latisha last year during season one of ReEntry Stories, and today, she will share with us the story that made her the winner of the 2020 Dayton Story Slam.
