Executive Director and Co-Founder of Hour Children, Sr. Tesa has received numerous awards for her commitment to improving the lives of formally incarcerated mothers and their children.

Awards include:
The Queens Citizen of Distinction Award; The Helen LaKelly Hunt Neighborhood Leadership Award from the New York Women’s Foundation; The Irish Heritage Award from the NYC Council; Union Square awardee "twice" and the Service Provider Award from the New York State Parole Board.

Dear Friends,

Hour Children has been busy as ever, working to meet the ever-growing and changing needs of the women and children at Hour Children. I am pleased to say that our recent analysis of the rate at which our clients are re-incarcerated has dropped to 3.5%, demonstrating that services we provide are helping women remain out of the correctional system. This in turn means that dozens of children can continue to live and grow in a stable environment with their mothers.

At Hour Children, we strive to meet the whole needs of a family whose caregiver is exiting from jail or prison. Our services start while a woman is incarcerated - providing counseling, advocacy, parenting workshops and prison nursery services. We help the children of incarcerated mothers have as much contact as possible so that re-entry to the community and family reunification can happen with greater ease. For the children with incarcerated parents, we provide transportation for visits while the parent is incarcerated; mentors for the children to give general support and fun activities; day care; and after school programming. For the mothers, we provide mentors and a job training and placement program. And, of course, we are able to house mothers with babies leaving state prison or city jail nurseries or moms seeking to reunite with a child.

Some of our recent achievements include:

• The opening of Hour Woman to Woman Mentoring Program, which connects mentors with incarcerated women as they enter back into the community.
• The purchasing and renovating of Sr. Kathy's House, our newest communal housing site. Opening fall 2010, this building will provide affordable, transitional housing with supportive services to 14 women and their children.
• The site purchase and building pre-development of Hour Children's third apartment house which will house 18 formerly incarcerated families who were homeless and in need of supportive affordable housing.

Thank you again for your generous support. God's continued blessings on you and your families as we grow together in 2010.

Sr. Tesa Fitzgerald, CSJ
Executive Director