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Six years after opening, a Philadelphia, PA, pizza shop continues its mission of providing a fresh start and making life easier for former inmates . According to NBC News, the seven-member staff at Down North Pizza consists entirely of formerly incarcerated individuals, including executive chef Michael Carter. Carter was searching for a new beginning after losing his job during the COVID-19 pandemic and selling barbecue meals off his porch. “When I add up the guys who work here, it’s about 63 years incarcerated. So it’s like we understand each other, where we come from,” Carter told NBC. “We had the same barriers when we came home, like whether it be employment, housing, health care — we all had to figure it out.” Carter was one of the first hires at Down North with experience in the kitchen, AFROTECH™ previously reported. Childhood friends Kurt Evans and Muhammed Abdul-Hadi founded the North Philly staple, hoping to reduce recidivism rates in the area. The restaurant serves pizza,...
When one family member becomes incarcerated, the entire family suffers the collateral consequences . Of them all, exorbitant prices for limited communication and the inability to make in-person visits take one of the worse tolls. Due to their personal experience with the unjust and oppressive prison system, teen-aged Jay’Aina “Jay Jay” Patton and her father Antoine, an ex-prisoner, developed Photo Patch , a program and mobile app that connects imprisoned parents to their children. According to Teen Vogue , Antoine, who learned to code in prison, was released in 2014 and built Photo Patch Foundation, a website where kids could write letters and upload photos without unreasonable charges. Later, to avoid sending the materials through snail mail, Jay Jay developed a mobile app version for easier, faster access. “Everybody’s on their phone. It’s way easier for them to take a picture and type a letter right there,” she told Teen Vogue. “My dad said I should try it.” Since the app’s...