M2W2

The mission of this agency is to make our community a safer place to live, while affecting individual lives for Christ. We accomplish this by assisting our offender/ex-offender friends to become self-sufficient, productive members of the community. The purpose of our monthly/bi-monthly visitations is to provide inmates with a stable friendship and inspire them to become more responsible and productive as citizens.

HISTORY

Our agency began in 1964 when a small group of Christian men began going into Washington State Reformatory to visit inmates who had no visitors. Although the group continued to grow; it could not grow as fast as the word got around among the inmates. The demand was gratifying and overwhelming. Man-to-Man Prison Visitation Ministry (M-2) was formed to coordinate the one-to-one matching of community volunteers with prison inmates.

In 1964 a young Presbyterian minister, Richard Simmons, returned to the Pacific Northwest from New York. He asked his friend, Judge Robert Utter (later Chief Justice of Washington Supreme Court) what the greatest social and spiritual need in the State was. His answer was the need to visit and assist the lonely, rejected people in prison. Job Therapy was born out of that need, with the M-2 (Man-to-Man, now “Match 2″) fellowship program growing and bringing hope and jobs to men otherwise condemned to recidivism through jails and prisons. From Snohomish County it spread throughout the State, 16 other states, Canada and even parts of Europe.

Job Therapy moved into its headquarters from Snohomish to Seattle, grew, and over the next 17 years had hundreds of sponsors (men, women, families) visiting hundreds of men and women, behind bars, restoring them to productive, working members of our communities.  Job Therapy recorded the lowest rate of recidivism and the greatest job success program of any agency or organization working with difficult offenders. Millions of dollars have been saved, but more importantly, thousands of lives have been salvaged and happiness restored to hundreds and hundreds of families.

The purpose of these monthly (or more frequent) visits was (and still is) to provide the inmate with a stable friendship, and to inspire him/her to become a responsible, productive individual. As inmates in the program were released, it became apparent that there was no one to assist them to transition back into the community. Understanding that a job was the first step toward self-sufficiency and transition, a job services component was added, and Job Therapy (with the prison visitation element) was born.

In the early 1970s Woman-to-Woman (W-2) was added, and the main office was moved to Seattle. The program grew and spread throughout the state and into 16 other states. In 1980 the program was suffering financial difficulties and closed the entire out of state offices and most of the offices in this state. A handful of the original volunteers decided to re-start a separate program in Snohomish.

They incorporated in 1980 as M-2 Job Therapy of Snohomish County, a non-religious, non-profit. Lou Kaufer, who had been with Job Therapy in Oregon, was hired as Executive Director in 1982 and served until his death in September 1998. Under his leadership, and with his wife Betty’s assistance, the Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman Program was revitalized and re-established in Snohomish County

The Board of Directors voted in June of 1985 that the M-2 in the agency’s name would from that time forward refer to Match-two, to include all sections of the prison programs without changing the name. Gordon Cameron was hired as Prison Visitation Director in 1984 and retired in 1996. Harry Timm served as Prison Visitation Director from 1996 till his death in 2000. Richard A. Cinkovich was hired as Executive Director in March 1999. Phil Ramsey was hired as Prison Visitation Director and Jobs Service Director in April 2000.

Historically, the increased burden of larger and more prisons warehousing offenders is an appalling burden on taxpayers who become more resentful of a failing type of justice that violates both the public and the offender. Our M-2/ Job Therapy Program is the best, most effective and least costly alternative we know of for reducing crime, recompensing the victims of crime, discipling and changing the offender to a responsible working person in our society, and reducing the cost of crime and justice to all of us. We are challenging the record and cost of our penal system with our current program success and a bright future alternative for our state and nation. Join us!