Update

If you know Virginia Hammond, the Prison Society’s 2024 Volunteer of the Year, you know she is a committed Prison Society mentor; a lover of plants, jokes, and tennis; and, most importantly, a kind-hearted person who truly desires to serve.

So, if you end up sitting next to her on one of the Prison Society’s family transportation bus trips to state prisons, you’ll likely wind up telling her your entire life story. 

“I feel like Virginia is the embodiment of a warm hug,” said Kirstin Cornnell, Family and Community Support Director. 

“She’s a joy to be around, and  my spirits lift whenever I see her. So much of this work is so heavy. The issues feel insurmountable. Having her ever-present sense of joy and levity helps, and I admire her ability to channel that and share it with others.

“You can’t fake her genuine kindness and empathy,” Kirstin said. 

Virginia has been participating with the Prison Society for nearly a quarter century, since her son Christopher was incarcerated in 2001. Virginia’s husband was so hurt and angry that he swore he would only take the family to visit his son once a year. As a wife, Virginia understood her husband’s despair, but as a mother, she could not abandon her son behind bars.

However, the drive to State Correctional Institution (SCI)  Albion, where Christopher was originally incarcerated, was more than six hours from her home in Bryn Mawr, too far for her to make on her own.

That was when she discovered the Prison Society’s family bus service to state prisons. She immediately signed up to visit her son.

Virginia quickly became an informal bus captain, signing people in at pre-dawn departures and making sure their visits went smoothly. At the same time, though, she was building community, bolstering spirits, and helping her fellow passengers on the bus — and in life — navigate the stresses and sorrows associated with having a family member behind bars.

Virginia’s informal bus captain contribution was so important that the Prison Society later established the role of bus captain and began recruiting volunteer leaders for trips to other prisons. Now, 22 years later, Virginia is still a bus captain, visiting her son, now incarcerated at State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy.

Over the years, Virginia continued to volunteer. These days, she shows up at Hope Alive, a monthly meeting for families and formerly incarcerated people to talk over challenges and opportunities. “You don’t know who you are going to get, and you don’t know what is going to be on the table,” she said.

Virginia also serves on the Prison Society’s Community Advisory Council, a group of people directly impacted by incarceration that helps staffers with strategy, storytelling and community outreach. She also volunteers in the Prison Society’s mentoring program, visiting one-on-one with incarcerated people to help ease their transition home and making herself available to them when they are out.

“She is always there to respond and support,” Kirstin said.

“Anything they want, I will do,” Virginia said. The Prison Society has “done so much for me in so many ways. When I needed it, they were the ones that made the difference.”

Her motivations are complicated and reflect the tangled web of family emotions related to incarceration. 

“When you go through it, it’s a trauma to your family. It impacts you as a person, who you are as a mother and it certainly impacted Wade as a dad,” Virginia said, speaking of her late husband and Christopher’s father. “I understand his devastation, I really do. He broke down and cried, and I don’t think he ever recovered.”

“Wade was at a point where there was no negotiation – no bridge, but I did feel the need to visit my son,” she said.

“The Prison Society allowed me to [deal with] the issues in my marriage without letting Chris’ being in prison be the breaking point of my marriage,” she said. “I could come back from that prison and kiss Wade and be in his arms.”

Being a volunteer isn’t always easy. Sometimes time plus effort don’t add up to a satisfactory conclusion, but Virginia persists. “I don’t judge myself. My goal is to be available, to be supportive, to be helpful. 

“I think my gift is to connect to people,” Virginia said. “I’m using my gift in a positive, constructive way that may make a difference in someone’s life.”