Excerpt from WUSA9, published April 12, 2023
Written by Jess Arnold
WASHINGTON — April is National Second Chance Month, and some DC groups are coming together at a hackathon to find solutions to the challenges returning citizens face.
Mission: Launch first started organizing these hackathons eight years ago. Teresa Hodge founded the organization in 2012 after she got out of prison.
“I served a 70-month federal prison sentence, and when I came home, I created the solutions that I felt like I would need,” Hodge said.
One of her focuses became on harnessing technology to help others facing a similar situation she did.
“Before going to prison, I was a technology early adopter. And while I was in prison, you know, I always laugh and tell people that Twitter, the whole social media buzz happened while I was in prison, I couldn’t understand like, what’s a tweet? Who’s tweeting? What’s going on?” Hodge said. “When I came home, I recognized that technology was void in this space. And I felt like that’s why reentry was really inefficient.”