RESTORE gives women a 2nd chance after prison 

Nationwide, Second Chance month (during April) recognizes the challenges faced by people with criminal records. Formerly incarcerated women must overcome significant barriers when transitioning back into society.

In Jacksonville, a nonprofit program called RESTORE operates two transitional homes serving about 14 women who’ve had run-ins with the justice system and are reintegrating back into the community.

RESTORE’s executive director, Rebecca Davis, first meets women on the verge of leaving prison and talks to them about the program, which offers former inmates safe, affordable housing and counseling in one of two transitional homes.

“Oftentimes, some of them don’t believe they deserve to be in this space and to just see them grow and learn to value themselves,” Davis said. She notes that women may face specific responsibilities, including children, and RESTORE helps them address those and the trauma that may have surrounded their incarceration.

RESTORE — short for Rebuilding Ex-offenders Successfully Through Opportunities, Rehabilitation and Education — started in 2018. Jacksonville had its first transition house in 2020; the second in 2023.

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The group recently raised funds to match a $400,000 gift from the Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Fund to build a new quadplex of homes on West 9th Street. Groundbreaking will be in May.

In five years, RESTORE has helped more than 100 women who come in knowing the rulebook: Stay off drugs; meet with your mental health therapist; keep the curfew; and get a job. 

Valerie Mills came to RESTORE from incarceration at the Women’s Reception Center in Ocala.  She met Davis a few months before her release and when she arrived to RESTORE in Jacksonville they provided everything she needed.

“I had a closet full of clothes, hygienes, makeup,” Mills recalled. “They had it sitting on my bed waiting for me.” 

Many of the women go right into a ready-to-work program, through Operation New Hope, which provides employment opportunities, case managers and career development programs.

Mills soon found work at nearby Cross Creek Steakhouse. She remembers applying with the manager. “I told her straight up I was fresh out of prison, and I was willing to work whatever hours, looking for steady employment,” she said.

Her goal is to save money, move to the new Quadplex home next year and eventually get her own place. For now, she’s happy living in a “safe and protected place where we have a whole team of people behind us — our own personal cheerleading squad.”

RESTORE advocates that clients undergo counseling to heal, as they say, from “the inside out.”

Sharon Brown came in feeling lost and needing case counseling after a DUI. She said she was depressed and drinking and RESTORE gave her skills to cope.

“You know, there’s not much out there for women who may be going through a dark space in life and need help,” said Brown, who read the RESTORE handbook of rules several times. “I said, ‘This is for me. I’m gonna try this.’ And in that handbook it says, ‘If you follow these rules, I can help you.’

“I’ve followed those rules and I’ve been helped. Yes, you do restore your life.”