Locked in Solidarity event to bring awareness to an important cause

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.—The Beacon and Riverside Church will host the fifth annual Locked in Solidarity event at the Beacon on Sunday, Feb. 21 in South Bend.

The event is bringing awareness to incarceration and the impact it has on our local community. The Beacon Executive Director, Jeff Walker said this year, guests have the option to either attend in-person or via zoom. There will also be two local civic leaders as guest speakers.

“People here in our congregation that are very passionate about social matters and mass incarceration is a huge social matter so it was important for us to bring it here and to start that conversation,” Walker said.

Locked in Solidarity is a nationwide event that was started in 2014 as an effort to increase awareness of the impact mass incarceration has on communities. It was brought to south bend in 2017 and has since grown within the community.

Walker said this year’s theme is re-entry and that both Saint Joe county prosecutor Ken Cotter and Magistrate for civil and criminal matters Andre Gammage will be speakers at the event. They’ll be speaking about the success the expungement clinics have had on returning citizens and how to keep the community moving forward.

Walker said they’ll also talk about ways people in the community can get involved to reduce incarceration rates and bring opportunities for individuals who are coming back to society.

“I hope that our attendees take away that there needs to be some change, and that we can affect those changes by how we engage with the community, how we go to the polls, and things like that,” Walker said.

Locked in Solidarity is a two-hour-long event that starts today at 4 p.m. at the Beacon Resource Center on Lincoln Way West. If you want to attend the event virtually via Zoom at http://riverside.church/zoom.