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She turned her life around. Now she's helping former prisoners do the same.

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Regis University

Kim Burkhardt was once a troubled teenager headed straight toward incarceration. But when she did end up in jail, it wasn’t as an inmate.

Instead, she was there as a college student, volunteering at prisons.

But she couldn’t have gotten there alone. As a teenager in the early 1990s, she was lucky to have gotten the right support to get her back on track. And that’s exactly why Burkhardt now focuses on prison reentry — helping give people who have been incarcerated a second chance.

[rebelmouse-image 19474705 dam="1" original_size="6000x3246" caption="Photo by Matt Popovich/Unsplash." expand=1]Photo by Matt Popovich/Unsplash.

Today, her commitment is a huge one: Burkhardt is executive director of the National Network of Prison Nonprofits (NC4RSO), an umbrella coalition connecting multiple prison nonprofits from around the country.

That wasn’t always her plan, though.

In 2001, Burkhardt finished a master's degree in Business Administration from Regis University with an entirely different goal: working as a market research consultant. And for a while, she was self-employed, running a market research business.

Image via Kim Burkhardt, used with permission.

But during that time, she never stopped volunteering at jails and prisons. After 13 years of doing do, she had a realization: There was no national network to connect prison nonprofits to one another.

“You know when you get an idea in your head and it just won’t go away?” she says. This was one of those ideas.

And after the economy crashed in 2008 and her business went down with it, she put her MBA skills to good use and pursued her passion project: NC4RSO.

Founded in 2010, NC4RSO helps volunteer-led prison programs coordinate their efforts and share resources.

Say you want to volunteer in a prison program in Seattle. You can get in touch with NC4RSO, and they can set you up with a member organization like Freedom Project, which focuses on nonviolent communication for prisoners.

Or, say two different member organizations are working on performing arts in prison, like Prison Performing Arts in Missouri. NC4RSO can help coordinate a sharing of resources and ideas.

NC4RSO also conducts research that demonstrates the vital need for these programs. For example, their 2011 prison mentoring study showed that 100% of participants who stayed out of prison had mentoring figures to guide them.

Why focus on prison reentry? The numbers, listed on NC4RSO’s website, speak for themselves. The United States has an enormous incarceration level, with only 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world's prison population. 95% of people in jail will be released, and the struggles they face finding employment affect their entire communities.

[rebelmouse-image 19474707 dam="1" original_size="1200x800" caption="Photo by Christian Bardenhorst/Unsplash." expand=1]Photo by Christian Bardenhorst/Unsplash.

At the heart of the nonprofit, though, are the phenomenal organizations it helps to support.

28 organizations from 11 different states have joined NC4RSO since its inception. The way Burkhardt sees it, they’re the ones doing the work, while she and her team provide support.

But, thanks to her efforts, those hard-working member groups are also gaining a public voice and working with more support behind them, so it goes both ways.

Though she never expected to use her master's degree from Regis University for this purpose, she’s really glad to have developed her project management and communication skills.

Earning her graduate degree also gave her confidence, which undoubtedly informs her fearless approach to this work.

Her story is a perfect example of how life can take you in unexpected directions. On this path, she’s helping prisoners and former prisoners whose humanity is forgotten by the rest of the world too often.

Image via iStock.

Burkhardt said that a prison chaplain once summed up NC4RSO’s impact perfectly, telling a group of volunteers, “You humanize this place.”

That alone, Burkhardt explains, is a vital part of building resiliency among people who return to society with so much vulnerability.

Burkhardt and other prison volunteers have witnessed that impact time and time again. She remembers one woman who returned to jail as an inmate several years after they first met.

The woman was surprised to see her again.

“You’re still here,” she said. “Oh ... somebody cares.”

Community

Facebook group brings people together IRL to make meaningful friendships

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Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

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friendship
Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

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education
Education

In 125 years, millions of people have looked at this painting. No one really saw it until recently.

Van Gogh saw something it took scientists another 100 years to see.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Van Gogh’s Starry Night.



Van Gough never got to enjoy his own historic success as an artist (even though we've been able to imagine what that moment might have looked like). But it turns out that those of us who have appreciated his work have been missing out on some critical details for more than 100 years.

I'm not easily impressed, OK?

I know Van Gogh was a genius. If the point of this were "Van Gogh was a mad genius," I would not be sharing this with you.
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Joy

Woman who lives on a cruise ship shares the hardest part about her perfect life

She's a little afraid to leave her cabin.

via Christine Kesteloo/TikTok and Cagri Gurbuz/Pexels

Christine Kesteloo has one big problem living on a cruise ship.

A lot of folks would love to trade lives with Christine Kesteloo. Her husband is the Chief Engineer on a cruise ship, so she gets to live on the boat pretty much for free as the “wife on board.” For Christine, life is a lot like living on a permanent vacation.

“I live on a cruise ship for half the year with my husband, and it's often as glamorous as it sounds,” she told Insider. “After all, I don't cook, clean, make my bed, do laundry or pay for food.“

Living an all-inclusive lifestyle seems like paradise, but it has some drawbacks. Having access to all-you-can-eat food all day long can really have an effect on one’s waistline. Kesteloo admits that living on a cruise ship takes a lot of self-discipline because the temptation is always right under her nose.

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cruise ships
Health

Women do better when they have a group of strong female friends, study finds

We're stronger together.

Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Women do better when they have female friends.

Madeleine Albright once said, "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." It turns out that might actually be a hell on Earth, because women just do better when they have other women to rely on, and there's research that backs it up.

A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that women who have a strong circle of friends are more likely to get executive positions with higher pay. "Women who were in the top quartile of centrality and had a female-dominated inner circle of 1-3 women landed leadership positions that were 2.5 times higher in authority and pay than those of their female peers lacking this combination," Brian Uzzi writes in the Harvard Business Review.

Part of the reason why women with strong women backing them up are more successful is because they can turn to their tribe for advice. Women have to face different challenges than men, such as unconscious bias, and being able to turn to other women who have had similar experiences can help you navigate a difficult situation. It's like having a road map for your goals.

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women
Pop Culture

Millennials nearing 40 are sharing their biggest mistakes so everyone can learn from them

Here are 21 of the most powerful responses.

via Pexels

Millennials are now old enough to seriously reflect on life.

It seems like only yesterday a millennial was a college kid that baby boomers chided for being entitled and Gen Xers thought were way too sincere and needed to learn how to take a joke. Today, the oldest millennials, those born around 1980, have hit their 40s and have lived long enough to have some serious regrets.

They also have enough experience to take some pride in decisions that, in hindsight, were the right moves.

The good news is that at 40 there is still plenty of time to learn from our successes and failures to set ourselves up for a great second half of life. These lessons are also valuable to the Gen Zers coming up who can avoid the pitfalls of the older generation.

A Reddit user who has since deleted their profile asked millennials nearing 40 “what were your biggest mistakes at this point in life?” and they received more than 2,200 responses. The biggest regrets these millennials have are being flippant about their health and not saving enough money when they were younger.

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millennials
Joy

Stop blaming the 'Karens.' The people who complain the most have a different name.

The stereotype has been wrong all along.

via Rickey123/Pixabay

A woman giving a stern warning.

Over the past few years, women named Karen have taken a lot of heat in the media. The term "Karen" has been used to describe a specific type of entitled, privileged and often middle-aged white woman. Typically, "Karen” is depicted as demanding, self-important and constantly seeking to escalate minor inconveniences to authority figures, like demanding to "speak to the manager."

Identifying the folks who create unnecessary drama in our world is important. But calling them a “Karen” isn’t the best way to solve the problem. There are many reasons to have an issue with the “Karen” stereotype. First, it’s terrible for people named Karen, and it’s also a connotation that many feel is racist, sexist and ageist.

Further, according to a new study by Trustpilot, the stereotype isn’t accurate. A recent survey by the online media site found that the people who leave the most one-star reviews aren’t female, and the women who do it the most aren’t named Karen.

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memes
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