May reentry outings to Sierra Foothills & Venice Sand Dunes

Every month, our Reentry Team brings recently released community members into nature, not as a reward, not as a recreational add-on, but as a core part of how healing happens. These outings create space for something that years of incarceration systematically removes: the experience of being fully present in a living world that asks nothing of you except to notice it.

This month, two dispatches from the field.

Sierra Foothills

Staff from our Reentry and In-Prison Programs teams took participants to the Ruth McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve and Millerton Lake in the Sierra Foothills.

We spotted golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, California quail, acorn woodpeckers, turkeys, towhees, and wrens under Valley and Blue oaks with our Audubon docents. We read tracks in the mud: turkey feet, tail feathers, what looked like coyote prints, a small mystery written in the earth.

We rested on a granite slab beside a creek where the Mono people once made their home. At least six grinding holes worn into the rock. Depressions in the ground where lodging once stood. A kitchen, a gathering place, a homestead that held a community for generations before displacement. We sat in that history quietly.

Then Millerton Lake: sandwiches, cold water, fishing poles, and a meditation. Johnnie, who started the morning saying he was intimidated by nature, walked out of the water saying, "I just shed so many layers. I can't believe how bad I needed this."

Gratitude to the Sierra Foothill Conservancy, our Audubon docents George and Georgine, and every participant who showed up and let the land do its thing.

Los Angeles

Three weeks after his release following 31 years in prison, Deshawn stood at the Venice Sand Dunes and said: "This is the first day that I truly feel free."

That moment came at the end of a recent outing to Madrona Marsh and the Venice Sand Dunes. Overcast skies, flowers, ducks, beetles, and black hairy caterpillars. Opening and closing circles led by Participant-Leader Klonie, with breathing, meditation, and reflection. In the closing circle, people shared memories from the day: community, new friendships, jokes, stories, and shared time on the land.