Our Sisters Keeper, Inc. is a non-profit recently formed by Suanne Bone and Brittany Davis that will advocate for these very women in our own community jails, both during and after their time in the criminal justice system. "Currently, we serve the General Sessions and Criminal Court in Smith county," notes Brittany, "but we hope to serve the entire 15th Judicial District as resources become available. That includes women in Wilson, Trousdale, Macon, and Jackson counties as well.

"I remember one of the first ladies who participated in our program. I picked her up from the jail and was taking her to a rehab facility where she would be staying for a few months and she literally had almost nothing to take. She had a few personal items in a garbage bag. That was her whole life. As we were just starting the non-profit, I called on friends and family for anything we could pull together to give her, some clothes and a bag of her own to put her belongings in. You would have thought I gave her a million dollars when I gave her a bag of clean clothes and toiletries and her very own pretty bag to carry it all in, " Suanne notes. "How can we expect to raise someone up like this, when, if and when she does get out of rehab, she doesn’t even have clothes to put on for a job interview. It’s needs like this that we take for granted but make a huge impact on success for many of these women."

And if we help these women, the end result is not just that these ladies lives will be forever changed but also the generations of women that will follow them.