Three Hours to Cleveland

By Betsie Davis, PYP Operations Coordinator, Regional Program Coordinator (Midwest), Facilitator

Three hours isn’t enough time to prepare for what you’re walking into—but it is enough time to remember why you’re going.

This trip was about people. Not just programs, not just expansion—but the people holding the work in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

I met with Jennifer Adjua and Cassandra Sirl, two facilitators of a team of five, who hold one of the largest Prison Yoga Project youth programs in the country. Starting with a relationship built by Chris VanHuysee with administration, their work inside the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center has grown steadily over the past three years—from a few classes a week to seven. That kind of growth doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because something is working. Because youth are showing up. Because staff are asking for more.

This past year, the program reached the female population for the first time. With the financial support from the facility, the team has built something strong—bringing in skilled facilitators, providing supplies, placing books and our graphic novel This Time I Choose into the hands of youth who may not have had access to anything like it before.

And now, it’s in peril.

The contract with the facility is not being renewed due to county funding cuts. At the end of June, a program that has become part of the rhythm of the space will shift to volunteer status. There’s no clean way to hold that reality. Something that has grown with intention, care, and consistency is now uncertain.

And it’s important to name what that really means. While many Prison Yoga Project programs are sustained by volunteers where funding isn’t accessible, a program of this size—serving youth across multiple units each week—requires a level of time, coordination, and emotional labor that is difficult to sustain without compensation.

We are actively working to secure grants and funding to continue supporting this team and maintain the number of classes currently offered. The facilitators here have built something extraordinary. They deserve to be resourced in a way that matches the depth of their commitment.

At the same time, twenty minutes away, something new is beginning.

Through a one-year grant from the Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation, Prison Yoga Project is launching a program at the Cuyahoga County Jail—two classes a week, starting from the ground up. Rachel Paez will be leading that work, stepping into the space with a steadiness that only comes from years of service. She applied to facilitate with PYP in February of 2025 and has waited for this moment with patience and trust. Her work through Rebels Farm, a nonprofit that brings horses inside facilities in Ohio and California, has prepared her for exactly this—knowing that doors don’t always open quickly, but when they do, they matter.

There is strong support from Cuyahoga County Jail’s Associate Warden Jennifer Frame, and you can feel it. That kind of support doesn’t just make a program possible—it makes it sustainable.

Cuyahoga County is holding both realities at once. One program fighting to stay. Another just beginning. And in between that, there’s us.

Being together in person mattered more than I expected. This work is meaningful, but it’s also heavy in ways that are hard to explain to people outside of it. The space between classes—the days when you’re not inside—can carry a weight that doesn’t have a clear place to land.

When you’re with others who understand that, something shifts.

Whether it was sharing time with facilitators who are just beginning or those who have been doing this for years, there was a sense of being held in something shared. A reminder that none of us are doing this alone.

And then there was the Warden.

Meeting with administration outside the walls is different. There’s space for conversation that doesn’t exist inside. You see the same hope from another angle—the desire for something better, something more stable, something that actually works.

Prison Yoga Project exists in a unique space. We move between worlds—inside and outside, staff and participants, structure and vulnerability. We try to hold both sides with honesty and respect. Sitting across from someone on the other side of that line, and recognizing the same intention, the same hope—it was grounding in a way I didn’t expect.

On the drive home, I kept thinking about these folks and their efforts. If these programs—one established, one new—can both find footing here, this could become something bigger. A model. A place where this work becomes part of the fabric, not an exception.

There’s no guarantee.

But there is momentum.

And sometimes, that’s enough to keep going.