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A Story of Success: Stanley Ratliff printer-friendly

By New Creations Community Outreach, Inc.

CAPA Member Stanley Ratliff Receives Jefferson Award

Stanley Ratliff, a resident of Westside Chicago offers hope to men in their early stages of transition from prison.  Stanley’s knowledge of operating successful prisoner reentry programs is multi-faceted.  In addition to having a vast amount of training and professional experience, Stanley also possess personal experience.  Before starting Hope House\e in 1995, Stanley had spent time in an Illinois prison.  Hope House, a recovery home for men who have recently been released from prison.  Men in the program learn employment skills and other life skills.          

While in jail, Ratliff finished his BA in Music and continued his passion by developing the Hope House Choir…a motley crew of three –dozen men of Hope House. He also teaches music theory, piano and saxophone. He is married to Antoinette and they have children ages 3, 15 and 22. In 2005, Stanley’s program brought Christmas gifts to 1300 children of incarcerated parent(s).  Ratliff also conducts Bible study at Cook County Jail every week. He also travels to all prisons in Illinois with Prison Fellowship: there, he sings and shares his story of hope. The felons touched by Stanley’s music and hope will see that there are alternatives to crime and drugs.

Of his work, Ratliff said, “I love what I’m doing…I work with men who have been incarcerated, men suffering from substance abuse…we go into the prisons to minister to those men.  Job security for me is helping to turn a lost life around.”

ABOUT THE JEFFERSON AWARDS

In 1972, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft, Jr. and Sam Beard founded the American Institute for Public Service, a 501(c)(3) public foundation, to established a Nobel Prize for public and community service – The Jefferson Awards. The Jefferson Awards are presented on two levels; national and local. National award recipients represent a “Who’s Who” of outstanding Americans. On the local level Jefferson Awards recipients are ordinary people who do extraordinary things without expectation of recognition or reward. To help us identify and celebrate these “Unsung Heroes” the Jefferson Awards has developed a partnership with the media. Today, it is the nation’s oldest and largest Media Partnership celebrating volunteerism in the United States. For more information visit our website at www.jeffersonawards.org

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