After Prison, Reentry Approached with ‘Extravagant Tenderness’

MEDFORD, Ore. — If you find yourself returning to Southern Oregon after prison and want to move on from your past, find your way to a nondescript two-story building on West Main Street in Medford. Step inside the carpeted, softly lit reception area, and within moments, the staff of Golden Rule Reentry will stream out of their offices to help you.

Can't find a landlord who will rent to a felon? Dezman Stacks will connect you to housing. Need help getting back into school or starting a vocational program? Ask Vera Hughes. Ready for a job but can’t find a willing employer? Brandi Ferreira is a job-placement expert.

Golden Rule’s founder and Executive Director, Abigail Lewis, describes her staff’s enveloping approach as “extravagant tenderness.” It’s a philosophy of judgement-free love that Lewis adopted from Father Greg Boyle, whose Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles helps over 10,000 former gang members and ex-inmates every year.

In Medford, most of Golden Rule’s 10 employees have served time in jail or prison. Lewis, 57, is their formidable mother figure, a generous hugger with white-blonde barrel curls. Each year, she and her staff walk alongside 300 to 400 formerly incarcerated people as they rebuild their lives.

People come in “emotionally and mentally beat down, either self-inflicted or from other people doing it to them. A lot of what we do is just believing in people until they are strong enough to believe in themselves,” Ferreira said.

Housing, education and jobs

Lewis started Golden Rule in 2020 as a volunteer for Oregon’s Federal Reentry Court. Parole officers sent her phone numbers of people who’d just been released. She’d call them, buy them coffee, and help them get new driver’s licenses, find drug treatment, and prepare for job interviews.

Golden Rule Reentry employees and executive director Abigail Lewis (at center) at a January 2025 staff retreat. Photo credit: Golden Rule Reentry.

In 2023, Lewis received a $300,000 state workforce grant to open a drop-in center, which today connects people to dozens of services and hosts a full calendar of classes and support groups, from employability skills and credit repair to staying sober and avoiding relapse.

Golden Rule also offers job training for men in manufacturing and women in construction; transitional apartments above the drop-in center; two homes for men; and the nonprofit’s first women’s home, near the center and across the street from the Oregon Community Foundation's Medford office.

Rebuilding parent-child bonds

OCF donors, including the Reed and Carolee Walker Fund of OCF, are helping to fuel Golden Rule’s work. One result is “Rebuilding Bonds,” a new support group for parents created by Ferreira and Hughes. Both are mothers.

To survive behind bars, you have to shut down your feelings, said Ferreira, 43, who served 12 years in state and federal prison after convictions for possession, delivery and manufacturing of methamphetamine.

Golden Rule Reentry recently purchased this house on Newton Street, directly across the street from OCF’s Medford office. Once renovated by women in Golden Rule’s construction program, it will provide a home for women transitioning out of incarceration. Photo credit: Shelby Oppel Wood

“And then you get out, and you have this child, and you want to connect with them emotionally, and it's really hard. This group is about helping parents understand their kids’ trauma, understand their own trauma, and come together,” she said.

OCF funding will enable Golden Rule to help moms and dads pay for birthday presents, school pictures, Halloween costumes, sports fees – the drumbeat of needs that can surprise and overwhelm a parent coming out of prison, who is often looking for work or a stable place to live.

“When I got out, I sent my son to first grade with no Valentine’s cards for school. His teacher had to call me. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that. I never had that when I was a kid,” Ferreira said. “I will be really happy to help some of these parents with things like that.”

On the lookout for “amazingness”

Lewis’ goals include expanding the construction training program into an income-generating home-building operation, so that Golden Rule can rely less on grants. Every new initiative is designed to support and humanize formerly incarcerated people who are trying to change.

"When you understand the impact of trauma that most of these folks have been through — and if they hadn't been through it before prison, they certainly did while they were in there — you start to see that it's just been one struggle after another for them,” Lewis said.

“A lot of it goes back to drugs: People can become very selfish and destructive when they are high. But if someone is in recovery, and they've taken back control of their life and overcome all these barriers, they're amazing. The people we have here, they are amazing. We're just always looking for that amazingness — to bring it out in people and help them find their way.”

Read the companion article to this story, about Freedom Farms in Gold Hill, here.

What you can do:

• Learn more about OCF Community Grants, which respond to and reflect the most pressing needs in Oregon communities.
• If you have a donor advised fund and would like to support prison reentry organizations in Oregon, please contact your donor relations officer.
• If you’re new to OCF, our philanthropic advisors can help you make the most of your giving.