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At 22 months clean and sober, John W. “John Wayne” Cormier Jr. is in a better place than where he’s been for most of his adult life, he says. Now 33, he is working full time, completing classes to be a recovery coach and running a music circle — and he owes much of that to the OpporTUNEity program he participated in while incarcerated at the Worcester County Jail & House of Correction.
A community-based initiative, the OpporTUNEity program at Anna Maria College pairs instructors and college interns with inmates in the jail . It is open to those who are housed in the main jail and, for the first time, in the “mods,” a higher-security section of the prison for inmates who have longer sentences and fewer privileges. The program not only teaches them the basics of songwriting, but leads them on a journey of self-exploration and discovery through music.
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“It really makes all the efforts worth
Anna Maria College Adjunct Professor/OpporTUNEity Songwriting Instructor Dan Thomas performing with songwriting students in December 2019.
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it when you see folks like John Wayne benefit from this,” said David H. Tuttle, superintendent of the Worcester County Jail & House of Correction.
The program at the jail began last fall, after Tuttle had been trying to create a music program there for some time. After hearing about the OpporTUNEity program that runs at Lincoln Street School and Burncoat Middle School in Worcester, he invited its founder, Dr. Melissa Martiros, who is also the director of music at Anna Maria College, to discuss options for the jail.
An added benefit is that OpporTUNEity at the jail helps fund the OpporTUNEity classes at Worcester Public Schools, both Martiros and Tuttle said. The House of Correction uses commissions from the inmates’ canteen accounts to pay Anna Maria to teach the course, and some of that money is then invested into the programs at Lincoln Street and Burncoat Middle.
Each week on Fridays at the jail, the students are taught a new basic skill, either lyrical- or musicalbased, and then after some handson activities, they work on writing songs based on certain themes, such as childhood, loss, breakups, addiction, anger and forgiveness. It also helps them work collaboratively with each other on song creation.
“It’s heavy stuff they work on. We don’t go in with any knowledge of why they’re there. They come in as really hard and intimidating and with a collective energy. A lot of that is self-protection,” Martiros
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Above: Anna Maria College President Mary Lou Retelle and Sherrif Lew Evangelidis, both center, appear with the participants of the Songwriting I program and the team inside the jail who made the December concert possible. After the concert, the students were given Certificates of Completion from Anna Maria College. Opposite page: John W. “John Wayne” Cormier Jr. sings “Wish I May,” a song composed by students in the first OpporTUNEity Songwriting class, during the December 2019 concert at the Worcester County Jail & House of Correction. This concert was the first time, in the history of the jail, that inmates were allowed contact visits with family. The participants in the course were allowed to invite family members inside the jail to watch them perform.
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said. But, she added, by the end of the course, some of that tough exterior has shed. “There’s a lot of laughter. There’s a level of respect for us because they know we’re there to help them.”
And, she said, “I’d rather live in a world where men who are incarcerated are able to express themselves through art.”
Cormier, who has always loved music since getting his start in a talent show in the sixth grade, said the program taught him new ways to write and approach songs. “Music is by far and large my passion. It really makes you believe in yourself and gives you purpose — and if not that, at least expression,” he said.
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The 13-week fall program ended in December with what all involved described as an emotional, moving and supportive concert, where 12 of the students performed their original songs. The jail does not allow contact visits, but the students were able to, as an incentive, invite one or two guests to the come to the performance, held in the chapel. Cormier said he was able to hold his niece for the first time while at the concert.
“Knowing that it was all original music that had been written in the three months was really special,” said instructor Dan Thomas. “It was heavy and significant for me, but I was feeling it more for the guys in the class — to have people come and see you as a person and having something to offer … not as a prisoner but as entertainers and artists. To have that experience and to have an audience looking at them with joy and love was really moving for them.”
Instructor Thomas Wilson said the concert was not only one of the highlights of his year, but also his life. To see all the families there was touching, he recalled, and the students were so eager and excited
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to share their music.
“There’s nothing but positive vibes surrounding the project. That’s what cool about it — everyone that’s involved, we know how important it is,” Wilson said.
OpporTUNEity restarted in the spring with a new group, but COVID-19 and a subsequent jail lockdown due to the state quarantine forced the program to pause until the summer, when they completed the course with a series of Zoom and in-person classes. Although they weren’t able to have a concert, the hope is that they will be able to for the new session that recently began in mid-September.
For the teachers and interns — and the students, as well — they all feel the same. Not only does it provide a rewarding program for the inmates, but it also gives college students an invaluable lesson about “how, as an incarcerated male, you can have that as part of you, but still be a decent person to others,” Martiros said.
Tuttle said programs like this are important because it keeps the jail safer and the inmates busy, while providing them with needed skills and introspective into their lives. “We’re not the police; we’re not the judge; we’re not the jury. It’s not our job to judge them — we’re there to rehabilitate them,” he said.
Thomas added, “If we put in energy and effort into lifting them up and showing them new skills and self-worth, I feel we’d have more success turning the tides for some of these individuals.”
Since graduating and earning a certificate from the first OpporTUNEity class, Cormier has been released and is currently on parole; he had served 15 months of his original sentence of two two-and-a-half years concurrent. He hopes to attend music therapy classes at Anna Maria College to earn a degree and is now running a music circle on Saturday nights at Opening the Word Peer Recovery Center in Webster.
“The idea is to encourage recovering addicts — and not just from drugs and alcohol, but from any trauma. You can nourish yourself with music. It’s a universal tool,” Cormier said.
“I can’t say enough about how awesome that program is,” Corm-
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ier said of OpporTUNEity, noting that the students all call Martiros the “Good Doctor” because of her efforts. “Most people to go jail, and it ruins their lives. I went to jail, and it was the start of a new life for me. They treated us like humans. That’s new to a convict, to an inmate. We’re used to being treated a certain way. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of.”
The entire OpporTUNEity Songwriting team with Sherrif Lew Evangelidis after the December 2019 concert. From left, Dan Thomas, instructor; Christopher McClure, AMC student intern; Jayden Hornburg, AMC student intern; Evangelidis; Paul Boisvert, student intern; Dr. Melissa Martiros, Dean of Music AMC/OpporTUNEity founding director; Nick Roth, AMC student intern and Tom Wilson, instructor.
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Colette Aimée is the daughter of an actor and a ballerina. Throughout her upbringing Aimee had all kinds of art flowing in and out of her life in the small town of Kent, New York. Musicians, actors, dancers, poets, painters and aristocrats were many of the influences that Colette took in to create the artist that she is today. Aimee found herself going on to art school at SUNY New Paltz in New York, receiving her BFA in 2006. She now shows all over the country in gallery shows and events as well as at various music and arts festivals. She continues to surround herself with the same types of creative people which inspire her to paint the luminous colors of her surrealistic world. For several years now she has been working with the idea of the Harlequin, a magical being that can change itself and the world that surrounds it. These esoteric Harlequins are sexual, playful and sometimes devious in their thoughts of traveling beyond the boundaries of our world and their own to reach tremendously elastic points of views. Check out more of her work at rawartists.com/coletteaimee or at the following events: Spencer Street Party in downtown Spencer: Aug. 24, Wormtown Festival: Sept. 13-15 in Greenfield.
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