{"id":23439,"date":"2024-03-14T05:33:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T05:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/?p=23439"},"modified":"2024-03-16T17:38:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T17:38:02","slug":"introducing-the-new-drsp-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2024\/introducing-the-new-drsp-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the new Death Row Support Project Team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<p><em>By Heidi Gross<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new Death Row Support Project (DRSP) Team started their work in January, upon the retirement of founder and former director Rachel Gross. One change the team has made is in the process for writers to connect with pen pals on death row. The team invites anyone interested in writing to someone on death row to attend an informational session on Zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The DRSP Team includes:<\/strong><br>&#8212; <strong>Rachel Caidor<\/strong> of Chicago, Ill., who writes to someone in Florida whose sentence was recently commuted from death to life.<br>&#8212; <strong>Tara Collum<\/strong> of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose current pen pals are in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana.<br>&#8212; <strong>Heidi Gross<\/strong> of Chicago, Ill., who writes to someone in Alabama whose sentence was commuted from a death sentence to a life sentence.<br>&#8212; <strong>Dina Milito<\/strong> of Sunnyvale, Calif., whose death row pen pals are in California, Texas, and Florida.<br>&#8212; <strong>Tim Reed<\/strong> of North Manchester, Ind., who is writing to people on death row in Alabama and Ohio, and one in Florida whose sentence was recently commuted to life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\"><div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"197\" height=\"197\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/drsp-logo.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/drsp-logo.png 197w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/08\/drsp-logo-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The online informational session,<\/strong> which is offered at three different times, will go over some basics of how this project works, introduce members of the team who are here to support writers, and talk about expectations of DRSP writers. If this feels like a good fit and you want to proceed, a quick online form will be available to help match you with a pen pal. Within a few days, you will receive via email the name and address of your new pen pal, as well as some tips on how to get started writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dates, times, and links for the informational session:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday, March 18, 8-9 p.m. (Eastern time)<br><a href=\"https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/92847329668\">https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/92847329668<\/a><br>Meeting ID: 928 4732 9668<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saturday, April 6, 2-3 p.m. (Eastern time)<br><a href=\"https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/93883179755\">https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/93883179755<\/a><br>Meeting ID: 938 8317 9755<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday, April 25, 8-9 p.m. (Eastern time)<br><a href=\"https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/91338648253\">https:\/\/northwestern.zoom.us\/j\/91338648253<\/a><br>Meeting ID: 913 3864 8253<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you aren\u2019t able to attend any of the upcoming informational sessions but would like to be on a list to be notified when new dates are scheduled, please email drsp@brethren.org or sign up at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brethren.org\/drsp\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"www.brethren.org\/drsp\">www.brethren.org\/drsp<\/a> to be notified of upcoming sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8212; Heidi Gross is a member of the new DRSP Team and also serves on the staff of Brethren Press.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Find more Church of the Brethren news:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__list wp-block-latest-posts\"><li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2026\/conference-business-for-2026\/\">Conference business includes resolutions on weapons transfer, care for immigrants and refugees, polity adjustments for licensed and commissioned ministers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2026\/essential-services-of-ordinances\/\">Essential services of ordinances now available online as For All Who Minister prepares for reprinting<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2026\/bdm-rebuilding-program-new-focus\/\">Brethren Disaster Ministries Rebuilding Program serves Hurricane Helene and Western Maryland storm survivors<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2026\/shine-free-worship-resource\/\">Shine Everywhere free six-week worship series helps churches nurture faith at home<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"wp-block-latest-posts__post-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2026\/invitations-to-look-up\/\">Feature for Earth Month and Poetry Month: Invitations to look up, to seek abundant life<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new Death Row Support Project (DRSP) Team started their work in January, upon the retirement of founder and former director Rachel Gross. One change the team has made is in the process for writers to connect with pen pals on death row. The team invites anyone interested in writing to someone on death row to attend an informational session on Zoom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1703],"tags":[3,2957,1543,2956,1340,1263,2958],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-23439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-of-the-brethren-newsline","tag-church-of-the-brethren","tag-death-row","tag-death-row-support-project","tag-drsp","tag-office-of-peacebuilding-and-policy","tag-peace","tag-pen-pals"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23440,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23439\/revisions\/23440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23439"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=23439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}