Staff

Andres Pacificar is a recipient of The Forward Promise Fellowship for Leaders, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to joining the Freedom Project team, Andres did community work throughout the Puget Sound area, and with Alive & Free, an Accelerator YMCA program that builds meaningful relationships with youth involved in gangs, violence and the juvenile justice system. Andres brings a growth mindset to his work with youth and their families each day. He demonstrates this by approaching each youth with an open mind and open heart, led by a passion to support them reaching their goals. Using personal experience, strong ties to the local community, and extensive training, Andres helps build a web of support to surround youth and support youth in identifying goals, such as engagement in education and employment, and overcoming the barriers to achieving these goals. “Using my past traumatic experience, I lend tools of healing to the young men of color in my community. I provide meaningful support by meeting these youth where they’re at both emotionally and in life, and sharing my experience of when I was in their place. For many of these young men, it is the first time they have had this kind of support from an adult who truly understands the complexity of their lives and who truly believes in their potential.”

• andres@freedomprojectwa.org

I grew up in the inner city and was incarcerated for over 10 years, and I understand the struggle of inner-city life, and I understand the trauma of being incarcerated. I also understand the strength it takes to overcome. I’m a firm believer in “Once you get out of a ditch, it’s your duty to help others out of a ditch.” Alone, one can do a little; together we can do a lot.

• anthony@freedomprojectwa.org

introduction coming soon

• aretha@freedomprojectwa.org

introduction coming soon (shown here with Orlando Ames and David Heppard)

• clorissa@freedomprojectwa.org

David knows first-hand the impacts of mass incarceration after being incarcerated at 16 years old with a de facto life sentence. Due to his juvenile status when he was convicted, and the passage of the 5064 bill, he was released after 24 years of confinement. He now works toward developing partnerships with other community providers whose mission is in alignment with making advancements in criminal justice and prison reform. He is also a Credible Messenger, which is a national initiative of adult men and women from similar backgrounds who equip young people with the tools to heal their lives and provide them with a living example of hope and transformation.

• david@freedomprojectwa.org

introduction coming soon

• demarques@freedomprojectwa.org

As a community organizer, Dyneeca seeks to dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex. She actively participates in community outreach, resentencing hearings, pre-trial procedures, and advocates for legislation and sentencing reform. Dyneeca engages in a range of community advocacy activities, including Kids Are Kids, which fights for youth facing adult sentences. She also serves on the Pretrial Committee, where she offers opinions on procedures that may be harmful to people awaiting trial. She contributed to Seattle’s Cannabis Reform policy that was signed into law in 2022. She organizes directly with incarcerated leaders daily, and is committed to centering their voices in every space she is in.

• dyneeca@freedomprojectwa.org

Eugene Youngblood was arrested in 1991 at 18 years of age and released in March of 2021 at the age of 48 after serving 29 and a half years. He was set to spend the rest of his life in prison but in June 2019, the clemency and pardons board voted unanimously to recommend release after finding that his personal transformation and the work he did with other prisoners was extraordinary. “It can be harder to heal from having harmed others than from all the harm done to us. No matter how difficult the task, I’m up for the challenge because I know… people don’t change, we HEAL!”

• youngblood@freedomprojectwa.org

Felicia is the Legal Resources Coordinator for the Beyond the Blindfold of Justice Project at Freedom Project. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s in Sociology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Felicia is passionate about assisting others with the barriers they face in relation to incarceration, marginalization, and oppression. As an indigenous woman, she seeks to dismantle the harm caused by generational trauma and systems of colonialism. Felicia was incarcerated at the age of 18 and served a 16.5-year sentence. She utilizes her lived experience to support justice impacted individuals in accessing resources to assist in legal aid.

• felicia@freedomprojectwa.org

Franklyn Smith is a justice-involved community leader who has turn his passion and pleasure for assisting individuals in transition (homelessness, incarceration, and treatment programs) into his current profession as a Community Resources Director with Freedom Project. Franklyn was born and raised in Seattle, attending and completing Seattle Public Schools, served in the US Armed Forces-Army, and holds a Degree in Business and Accounting with supporting certificates in Supervisory Management/ Leadership Training, Case Management, Peer Counseling and Credible Messenger Mentoring Training. Franklyn started his professional career in the field of community resources navigation as a volunteer with such organization as St. Vincent DePaul (St. Francis House), Crisis Clinic, and eventually hired by the Freedom Projects (Safe Returns Reentry Program) in 2009. Franklyn has participated in various summits on Homelessness, Reentry and has presented testimony to the WA State House of Representatives, Senate, legislator, and Results WA on the issues of Homelessness, Reentry, and Public Health Safety.

• franklyn@freedomprojectwa.org

Jeremiah directs the Beyond the Blindfold of Justice work, which seeks to build access to legal aid and legisltative advocacy for community members, as well as encourage more people who identify as Black to enter legal careers. Jeremiah is a journalist, legal scholar, formerly incarcerated person, and matriculating law student. In 1992, at age 14, he became one of the youngest children in the United States to receive a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole and the second youngest person to receive this sentence in the history of the State of Washington. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama (2012)—in which the Court declared that imposing mandatory sentences of life without parole on juveniles violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment—Jeremiah was resentenced to an indeterminate term of twenty-five years to life, which made him eligible for parole. While he was imprisoned, Jeremiah committed himself to higher education notwithstanding a sentence that meant he would die behind bars. Through independent means, he earned a bachelor’s degree in legal studies and criminology, graduating magna cum laude. He also utilized his education to tutor prisoners working to earn their GEDs and became an advisor to the University Beyond Bars, a non-profit that enables prisoners to obtain a college education at Washington State Reformatory.  Upon graduating from Gonzaga University School of Law, he will use his law degree to help those he left behind in prison. In 2019 as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that deemed his sentence to be a cruel and unusual punishment. Since then he has consulted with lawmakers and academics, lectured to law students and undergraduates, and presented to corporate law offices to further their understanding of the criminal legal system and advocate for change, reform and healing with the legal system.

• jj@freedomprojectwa.org

Jermaine Williams is the Director of Freedom Project East, serving in Spokane County and the eastern part of the state. As an impacted person, his aim is to build bridges that will empower other impacted individuals to cross over into their humanity. This journey is one of healing. Jermaine believes when our thoughts, words, and deeds are in concert only then will our lives have harmony. Jermaine has been a peer mentor for two decades.  Part of his healing journey has been owning the height of his virtues and the depth of his vices while developing the courage to truly represent himself good bad ugly indifferent.  Jermaine’s versatility is unquestionable from Tchaikovsky and Wolfgang Mozart to DaBaby. You couldn’t tell by looking at him but Footloose (1984) and Hairspray (2007) are two of his all time favorite movies.

• jermaine@freedomprojectwa.org

Joanie coordinates the databases and systems that support Freedom Project operations. She works to develop and implement strategies to organize, store, and track both data and project management. Using these tools, she especially supports collaborations around program development, program implementation, and grant-writing. Joanie has a Masters Degree in Social Work from the University of Washington.

• joanie@freedomprojectwa.org

Karen developed a passion for prison abolition and advocacy for justice-impacted people after facing a conviction and serving time in Minnesota. Karen has a background as a mental health therapist and hold a PhD in Education, completing her dissertation on how peer mentorship aids in re-entry for justice-impacted women. Additionally, Karen works to support equitable employment for impacted people with Weld, as well as working with Washington Voices to support the humanity of those facing sex offense convictions.

• kchung@freedomprojectwa.org

Karen is a community organizer and activist, a consummate artist, singer, actor, and poet. Karen is a lifelong learner who understands the impact of trauma and the possibilities of healing as a pathway to self-expression. Karen has been a champion of people experiencing homelessness, trauma, and oppression for many years, investing her time, energy and heart in the work of changing our systems from the inside and outside. Karen has worked her way as a local leader, to being a sitting member of the Advisory Committee of the King County Regional Homeless Authority, to collaborating on the Ending the Prison Industrial Complex coalition, and the Lived Experience Coalition, among others. In grassroots organizing efforts, Karen is usually the first to set the foundation for humanizing the work. She knows the importance of cultivating others and building collective power between struggles, as seen through her contributions to the Lived Experience Coalition, Village of Hope, Black Priosner’s Caucus, People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, and many other groups. In these spaces, Karen stresses the importance of relationships, understanding history and gatekeeping, and attending to the needs of People of Color, women, young people, and the LGBTQ community. Karen brings her talent, skills and big heart to the work. She knows first-hand the impact of incarceration as a youth and as an adult and understands the difficulty navigating these systems.

• kt@freedomprojectwa.org

Kiki does community work with Freedom Project by connecting with people and organizations that help fund the work we do. She loves collaborating on resources and strategies that meet the needs of the community, as directed by the community. She writes grants, shares about the work we are doing, and connects with people who want to support this work through giving. She also enjoys the opportunities to co-facilitate anti-oppression trainings with the Freedom Project team. She started at Freedom Project in 2016 and brings over 20 years experience in business and organizational development, as well as a long meditation practice. A recovering perfectionst, Kiki went to Smith College and earned a Bachelor’s Degree with High Honors in American Studies. Her focus was on contemporary issues impacting Native American communities; and studied religious freedom conflicts with the National Park Service in the West. Kiki loves to backpack and be in the woods; it connects her to one small offer of reparations for the history of dehumanization, colonialism and theft perpetuated by her lineage.  This is life-long work.

• kiki@freedomprojectwa.org

Lauren works closely with folks inside as well as coordinating volunteer support. She joined Freedom Project after serving downtown Seattle’s least resourced and most stigmatized communities where she provided direct clinical service and outreach to those living within the intersections of homelessness, incarceration, addiction, complex mental health experiences, acute crises and trauma. She brings a trauma-based approach to developing and decolonizing NVC curriculum while centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in all aspects of her work. She also brings her own experiences with the legal system as a youth and witnessing irreversible racial and carceral trauma in her community. She is passionate about exploring how we can hold and heal the traumas we all experience from systemic violence.

• lauren@freedomprojectwa.org

Orlando was incarcerated at the age of 27 and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole due to the 3 strikes law. In 2014, Orlando went before the clemency and pardons’ board and received a unanimous decision to commute his sentence of life without parole to one of freedom. After serving 21 years he did just that, walked into his freedom going from never to now. He has witnessed firsthand the mass incarceration of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other youth of Color and focuses on dismantling the School to Prison Pipeline from the inside out.  Orlando is also a Credible Messenger who works as a Care Coordinator with a focus on our youth that have been incarcerated or impacted by the criminal justice and public school systems.

• orlando@freedomprojectwa.org

Tonya endeavors to manage and broaden community resources offered to men and women returning to the community after incarceration. A Black woman directly impacted by the prison system, Tonya knows that the needs of previously incarcerated women often go unacknowledged and unmet. She realizes that as Outreach Director of an organization that seeks to disrupt White Supremacy and center the voices and leadership of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and all people of Color, she stands in a position of responsibility for those coming after her. Tonya values the mindfulness and empathy-building potential of the Nonviolent Communication model and works with others in the organization to refresh the model to be one of true inclusion and relevance for all people. Tonya is also a board member of the Freedom Education Project of Puget Sound (FEPPS) and a native of Tacoma. She has presented as a TEDx speaker and spoken word artist, as well as appearing in the documentary Since I’ve Been Down. Tonya was also one of the fonding members of the Womxn’s Village at Washington Corrections Center for Women, a menotrship and educational collective run by people currently incarcerated. Her greatest joy is being part of an extensive and vibrant family in Tacoma, Washington.

• tonya@freedomprojectwa.org