Informational Video about Fresh Start below .
Our Philosophy
Mentoring those in need while still in jail is important, however, there is a great need for those in Jail to have personal and professional fresh start after they get out of jail.
Fresh Start is a full-service facility focusing on inmates who are returning to the Winona and Huston County, areas with no place to call home.
Fresh Start of Winona is a full-service home focusing on ex-offenders who are returning to the Winona County area with no place to call home. Once released, the rehabilitation process must continue. Once released, our clients will need to continue any previous counseling, spiritual guidance, mental health services, or substance abuse treatments. Many of those who have been deviant have been so because they did not have, or did not make use of, the resources to achieve positive living.
Fresh Start strives to equip those who have few to no resources. While here, the residents of Fresh Start will be given an opportunity to learn a trade, go to work or to school, and achieve continued education or a completion of a G.E.D. This will enable the residents of Fresh Start with a venue to become responsible, working-class citizens who are less likely to return to unlawful behaviors.
Compliance with programs, while detained, is a great feat. It shows a desire to do something positive with their lives. However, programs that only exist inside detention centers tend to show improvement for its participants while still inside of the detention centers. Once released from their confines they are also being released from possibly the only stable support group available to them.
When released our potential clients have more distractions in a world with no tangible bars, lock, or key to live behind. The motivation they once had to come to meetings and classes that benefited them while they were in confinement may change when there is more to do than sit in a cell.
In the event that our potential clients become literally free on paper, they are bound by their circumstances in reality. In some cases, our potential clients have finished the time sentenced to them. However, they cannot be released because they have nowhere to be released to. Housing with guidance, and education is highly needed in order to help break the cycle of recidivism.
Fresh Start, in addition to providing temporary housing, will partner with Winona area businesses in providing opportunities for work. Our trained mentors will show them how to make résumés, fill out applications, the importance of good work ethic, how to manage finances and rightfully restore broken relationships with their community and families.