MDC Students Create Letter Exchange Club With Homestead Correctional Institution

Kendall Campus professor Carlos Gonzalez wanted to make a connection between his English composition class and his meditation course at the Homestead Correctional Institution. 

Last spring, he initiated a PenPal program that encourages students at Miami Dade College to send weekly anonymous letters to female prisoners at the Homestead Correctional Institution. 

As the project took flight, one of Gonzalez’s students, Eduardo Guzman, expanded it to include enrichment beyond the classroom. 

In January, Guzman created the Letter Exchange for Awareness and Progress Club, a PenPal initiative that also collects essential goods like hygienic products for incarcerated females. 

“I turned from being a student that only wanted a grade, to a student that actually cared about the people in the correctional [facility],” said Guzman, a first-year biochemistry student. “LEAP is trying to make a better community.” 

Although the club’s first two meetings were virtual, the group hopes to hold in-person events in April and organize a visit to the Homestead Correctional Institution this summer. 

The in-person events will kick-start a speaker series featuring Q&A discussions with formerly incarcerated people and Kathie Klarreich, the director of Exchange for Change—a non-profit advocating for education in the prison system.

“We want to bring [guests] to talk to our club members…so that people can ask real questions and receive answers based on personal experience,” Guzman said.  

The club creates a Google Doc file each week with anonymous letters from member’s sharing their  triumphs and tribulations. Gonzalez delivers the letters to students at the Homestead Correctional Institution. 

“My role is to make sure that I provide a safe space for both groups,” said Gonzalez, who first began teaching mindful meditation courses at Homestead Correctional in 2021. “Change that happens is not because of the prison system, but because of people like the students who are willing to engage with people inside the prison.”   

Victoria Perez is one of the Letter Exchange program’s 29 members. The project, she says, has helped her build a bond with her PenPal.

“It’s like writing to your best friend but you can never be judged for anything,” said Perez, a first-year broadcast journalism student.

Other members, like first-year nursing student Denise Linares, use the letters as an outlet to share their academic progress and how their week is going. 

“Sometimes she’ll  ask me how my test went, or share stories about her childhood,” said Linares regarding her PenPal. “We also talk about how things are inside the prison system. I get to see inside her life, and she gets to see mine.”

The club is collecting hygienic products like shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste and period pads for incarcerated women. Donations can be dropped off at the Kendall Campus Student Life Department in Room 127. 

To join or obtain more information about LEAP, email Guzman at eduardo.guzman006@mymdc.net or visit the club’s Instagram page at @leap_mdckendall.  

“We’re making people realize that incarcerated people, in general, are not all bad people,” said Guzman of the club’s mission. “They just made a mistake and have not been given an opportunity to fix it.”

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