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A Common Faith in Christ Brings Students and Prisoners Together
Zoe Sandvig
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No compatibility profile would have predicted that John would one day call Jason “son.” Nor would common sense have forecasted a close friendship between men 20 years apart. But sometimes the most unlikely matches lead to the most profound friendships. That’s definitely true for six men in western Pennsylvania.
 In 2003 Prison Fellowship launched a ministry to train college students to mentor prisoners and their children. Grove City College in western Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of this new initiative, matching approximately 30 students with inmates in mentoring relationships since the outset of the program. And other schools across the country have similar models. At Taylor University in Indiana, more than 20 students mentor children with a parent in prison. And Colorado Christian University students lead group-mentoring sessions behind bars.
Jason Bailey first stumbled across the prison mentoring program at a college organizational fair in August 2004, the beginning of his senior year at Grove City. “There wasn’t any flashing, blinding light telling me to go to prison,” said the political science major who formerly volunteered at a youth detention center. But he missed working with the young men at the juvenile center, so he signed up.
Nine miles down the road at the State Regional Correctional Facility at Mercer, John Griffith was serving his fifth year on a 10- to 20-year sentence. When his chaplain told him that he had the opportunity to start meeting with a spiritual mentor from Grove City College, John didn’t protest.
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