Summer 2025

Walking Side-By-Side Towards Rehabilitation

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) believes that rehabilitation is the true path to public safety. An agency this large can’t make this a reality on its own. Volunteers play a pivotal role in this mission and work tirelessly to help inmates on their path to, and in many cases, after release.

One impactful volunteer is Keidrain Brewster, owner of a trucking company, and a bestselling author. Brewster is also the creator of the Big Reform Movement, a community initiative aimed at helping incarcerated individuals find a better future. After his release on August 4, 2014, Brewster experienced success but still felt a void in his life.

“I found myself at the house one day sitting in this big, beautiful home and I was depressed. I didn’t understand why. I was like ‘you’ve got a nice house, a pretty truck, some money...’ and I could never understand why I was feeling that way,” Brewster said. “Well, I noticed that when I was able to go inside the institutions to tell my story, that’s where the fulfillment came in.”

An agency as expansive as TDCJ relies on approximately 27,000 volunteers to help carry out its mission of rehabilitation. Many volunteers like Brewster come in and share their stories with the inmates to provide hope and show them a positive example of change.

“My job is to go in there and get the inmates to flip that switch. It has to be on the inmates to keep the light on,” Brewster said.

Brewster also highlighted the unique impact of working as a volunteer and peer.

“There’s a big difference between an officer telling them something who they see as an authority figure, versus someone such as myself who actually comes from the culture and who was actually raised in it,” Brewster said. “They’re looking at it from the standpoint of ‘well if he did it, I can do it, too.’”

In recognition of his contributions, Brewster received a Governor’s Volunteer Award in 2024 for his volunteer services. This year, Raeanne Hance received a Governor’s Volunteer Award for her volunteer services.

Hance has volunteered in the prison system for roughly 30 years. She had a career in general contracting when someone mentioned that she should try prison ministry. This eventually led to her switching career paths, and after years of serving in various roles for non-profit prison ministry organizations, she is now the Global Director for God Behind Bars.

“I think that volunteers are the center of a life being changed. I think if you come in and you volunteer on a regular basis, I almost picture those inmate residents waiting for you. You’re bringing hope,” Hance said. “That means that the Texas government has done a tremendous job in opening their doors to let others come in and be that ray of hope and sunshine.”

Hance started to recall a story of her first time visiting a jail, where she was handing out Bibles. An inmate asked her, “What is this?”  Hance replied, “Well, if you read it, I think you’ll meet a man that you’ll find out really loves you.”

It was at this moment Hance felt like she was where she needed to be.

“There’s a reason why I’m here, and there was suddenly a love that filled my heart for what society considers the worst of us. I felt the same kind of love for them as I do for my own family,” Hance said. “It was just something at that moment that stayed with me the rest of my life.”

Like Brewster, Damon West is a former inmate and current volunteer who understands the impact a volunteer can make on those incarcerated.

West is a keynote speaker best known for sharing his testimony of “be a coffee bean.” West’s story started in June 2009 at a county jail. As he was waiting for the TDCJ bus to take him to prison, he met Muhammad, another inmate who recognized West’s fear. Muhammad taught him a lesson about being a coffee bean.

“You need to imagine prison as a pot of boiling water. You’re going to have three choices on how to respond. You can be like the carrot that goes in hard and becomes soft by the water. You could be like an egg that becomes hard in the water. The third choice is to be like a coffee bean. A coffee bean has the power to change the water around it into coffee,” West recalled Muhammad telling him.

In addition to visiting facilities to speak with inmates, he serves them through education. In 2021, he was asked by the Board of Pardons and Parole to create a curriculum for a peer-led class. With assistance from his curriculum writing friends, Lisa and Rick Spain, West used his life principles and the coffee bean analogy to develop the the Change Agent Program for inmates to transform their lives.

“It doesn’t mean they’ll get out of prison, but it does mean they can get out of that prison in their mind,” West said.

“Every now and then they’ll ask, ‘Why do you do it?’ My response is, ‘That’s how I stay sober,’” West said. “And I think one of the reasons why God got me out of prison was to go out there and bring hope to the people in prison.”

He shared a story of a volunteer who changed his life. West, struggling with his new life in prison, was talking to a volunteer who mentioned God. West became angry and said, “What do you mean, God?” When the volunteer shared “The secret of faith is, if you’re going to pray, don’t worry, but if you’re going to worry, don’t pray.” West said it stuck with him ever since.

The impact of these volunteers was so great that West said, “If I could be one tenth of what those volunteers were to me, I know that I’ve had a positive change.”

These three volunteers are just a tiny piece of the extensive group that serve those incarcerated in TDCJ. Their volunteer service has a direct impact on the lives of inmates, their families and the recidivism rate. Together, our volunteer family strives to make a meaningful impact in the lives of those behind bars, reinforcing the belief that helping one another is what makes humanity truly great.