About Love Above Bars

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Our Love Above Bars event celebrates the incredible network of staff, volunteers, committed friends, and partners that share the Prison Society’s vision for a Pennsylvania that values and safeguards the health, safety, and dignity of people in prisons and jails, and the people that love them. Join us for an evening of heavy hors d'oeuvres, wine and beer, entertainment, and a short program honoring our annual award winners.

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This year’s event honors our 2024 Award Winners:

• Bradley S. Bridge, Human Rights Champion
• Tyreem Rivers, Incarcerated Person of the Year (SCI Dallas)
• Virginia Hammond, Volunteer of the Year
• Jim Bright, Correctional Employee of the Year (SCI Fayette)

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Our co-chairs for the event are:

• Speaker Joanna McClinton, who received last year’s Human Rights Champion Award for being an unwavering advocate for social justice, equality, and empowerment;
• Representative Emily Kinkead, a Prison Society Board Member who has been instrumental in ensuring that the Society is included in the state budget; and
• John Pace of the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project who himself served 31 years for a crime committed when he was 17.

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Scroll through photos from last year's event below.