Volunteers get as much as they give. No one believes that truism more than Sylvia Feldman, a longtime Prison Society volunteer from State College. “I feel like volunteering has enriched me, expanded my visions, expanded my horizons,” said Sylvia. “I feel like it has given me better empathy.” Sylvia volunteers with the Centre County chapter of the Prison Society and serves as a convener for SCI Rockview, a prison built in 1915.
As a convener, she reviews requests for help or visits, sorts them by priority, and then coordinates visits, either conducting them herself, or dispatching other Prison Society volunteer visitors to the prison.
“Sylvia has been such a tremendous asset to not only the incarcerated population at Rockview, but also their families,” said Jessica Reed, the Prison Society’s prison monitoring manager for Central Pennsylvania.
“Sylvia's quiet strength, infectious smile, and fierce advocacy make her the ideal person to lead the volunteers who visit SCI Rockview. Sylvia has a gentle way. She cares, and that comes across to all who speak to her. She visits people in SCI Rockview weekly, and knows their stories, struggles, and families,” Jessica said.
“She has told me in the past that she doesn't think she is necessarily a leader, but she is the best kind of leader; she leads by example. The Prison Society and the Centre County chapter are better because she is involved,” Jessica said.
Sylvia, the daughter of classical musicians, describes herself as a typical resident of Happy Valley, the nickname people give to State College, situated among farms and mountains in the rural middle of the state and just six miles from Rockview.
“A lot of the people who are incarcerated here come from urban environments and have had different backgrounds than my pretty quiet life,” she said.
Her experiences as a volunteer, Sylvia said, make her “better able to empathize with people who aren’t like me. That could be race, urban vs. rural. It could be someone who grew up in a different socio-economic environment.”
As different as all these categories may seem on the surface, they all fade away “through the connections I’ve made, the ability to see the humanity in people I might not have given much thought to, to see how many similarities I have with someone who is incarcerated,” she said. “We might laugh about the same things, have similar parenting challenges, develop an actual friendship. That’s been rewarding.”
Although those kinds of connections have been an unexpected bonus for Sylvia, it was her support for human rights that prompted her to sign up as a volunteer.
“It’s nice to do something that is hands-on as opposed to signing an online petition.”
“I want to see better conditions for incarcerated people,” she said. “I think the nature of the secrecy over how people are treated and their living conditions is criminal in itself.”
“Most people don’t get to hear the noise and the clanging and the shouting and see the actual living conditions of those facilities,” Sylvia said.
“We all have busy lives, and it’s so easy not to give any thought to this group of human beings behind bars.”
Recently, the Department of Corrections announced plans to close SCI Rockview.
Part of the facility, Sylvia said, is modern and as comfortable as a prison can be.
But, in another block, “the infrastructure is crumbling. One building seems like it is uninhabitable. The roof is leaking and there are pigeons flying around and there are [bird] feces,” she said. “There’s rust and mold on the wall where the showers are. It’s terribly cold in the winter and terribly hot in the summer.”
Sylvia forwards all complaints and issues to Superintendent Bobbi Jo Salamon at quarterly meetings.
“It’s very enlightening because we hear the one side, and it’s really helpful to hear the other side. The superintendent assures us that any concerns we have, she personally checks it out,” Sylvia said. “She has really shown us some good faith. We feel they are transparent with us.”
As a convener, Sylvia collaborates with other volunteers and has been cheered recently by new recruits motivated, as she is, by a sense of social justice.
“Some of our volunteers are people who were formerly incarcerated. They know the impact advocacy and a visit can have on a person,” she said. “They are some of our fiercest advocates.”
Sylvia values the satisfaction of changing one life in one prison, one day at a time, while knowing that the work of 200-plus other prison monitors like her is contributing to systemic changes in the broader prison system.
Sylvia hopes that her work leads to lasting improvements in what she describes as the “prison-industrial complex.” But she still values the satisfaction of changing one life in one prison, one day at a time. “I think I can make actual differences in actual people’s lives.”