FRAMINGHAM -- Twenty-one years ago, Dorothy Koffel was a tutor for people with learning disabilities when she met Sister Maureen Clark.

Sister Maureen founded the Sisters of St. Joseph Prison Ministry Aftercare Program in 1995. She told Koffel, who was interested in working with women in prison, that she could accompany women formerly incarcerated at MCI-Framingham after their release.

"When a nun asks you to do something, you really can't say no," Koffel said.

She assumed she would have nothing in common with the women behind the prison walls. The exact opposite turned out to be true.

"The first time I went to visit, I thought, 'That could be my son's friend,'" she said. "It changed everything right away for me."

The SJS Prison Ministry Aftercare Program started in 1995 with six volunteers. Now it has over 70, including Koffel, who helps formerly incarcerated women reenter society. Background checks, online records, and society's judgment make it difficult for the women to find jobs, housing, or redemption. One woman told Koffel, "You see us for who we are and not for the crime we committed."

Some of the women Koffel meets are so kind and sincere that she finds it hard to believe they committed the crimes that brought them to MCI-Framingham. It's not hard for her to see past the women's mistakes. The way she sees it, those mistakes are already in the past.

"I haven't met anyone in there who had what I would call a happy, boring childhood," she said. "They come from fragmented families. They have a history of growing up that didn't really give them a first chance, to say nothing of a second chance."

Koffel and about 12 other women attended the SJS Prison Ministry Aftercare Program's monthly meeting on March 2. The volunteers decorated the St. George Parish Hall in Framingham in green for St. Patrick's Day and enjoyed a dinner of pasta and meatballs. They were joined by Deacon Colm McGarry, a prison chaplain; Patrick Conway, head of the Boston College Prison Education Program; and Sister Maureen. Sister Maureen has not gone inside MCI-Framingham since she suffered a stroke in 2024.

"It did not affect my intelligence," she said. "I was really blessed by that."

The volunteers carry on the work of the ministry, which Sister Maureen said is "life-changing."

"The group started because we were working with women that were getting out and coming right back," she said, "and they needed some kind of help and some support in getting their lives together."

Conway spoke about BCPEP, which was founded in MCI-Shirley in 2019 and expanded to MCI-Framingham in November 2025. Twelve women incarcerated there are currently taking courses, out of the 21 who applied. BCPEP has also arranged for professional musicians to perform for the inmates. Between Shirley and Framingham, 98 inmates are part of the program, which offers 25 to 27 courses each year. Students can take up to three courses per semester to earn a bachelor's degree in liberal arts. The education is as fast-paced as what Boston College students experience on campus.

"I think what guides us is we don't really view it as prison education," Conway told Sister Maureen and the volunteers. "We view it as Boston College that just happens to take place in a prison."

Inmates learn English, history, theology, and philosophy, as well as entrepreneurship and data analysis. Upon release, inmates can study at BC, receiving technology training and laptops. Due to past trauma and their experience in prison, many of the inmates have low self-worth. The goal of BCPEP is not only to educate but also to spiritually nourish them. The first BCPEP student to graduate on campus did so last year.

"Our average time for graduation is four and a half years, which for prison education is kind of unheard of," Conway said.

After Conway's presentation, the volunteers gave progress updates on the women they are accompanying. Kathleen Kelleher stays in touch with two women who have been released and one who is a few months into her sentence. Kelleher told her about her pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and the woman responded that she wants to travel as soon as she is released.

"It's humbling," Kelleher said. "It's a privilege."

Her responsibility is to listen to the women's needs and "enter their world." When she hears their stories, she thinks to herself that it could have been her or her friends in their position. The women she meets are hopeful, hard-working, and perseverant.

"They want to do well," she said. "They want to do better. They want another chance."

She doesn't know the details of the crimes the women committed, nor does she want to. She lives by the words of Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative: "Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done." All of the women she accompanies were abused as children, whether physically, emotionally, or sexually.

"They're just hoping for a better life, hopefully sooner than later," she said.

Volunteer Laura Romeo provided music during Mass at MCI-Framingham for over 30 years before her retirement.

"It was really uplifting for me, because a lot of times their witness to me about their faith was very powerful," she said. "They had a very deep faith, a lot of them, and it was an extraordinary experience."

She would talk to the inmates before and after Mass and have choir rehearsals with them on Tuesday nights. She also provided music for their Christmas and Easter retreats.

"I was providing something helpful for them," she said, "and it was uplifting for me, too."

Volunteers Kelly Jacobs and Sally Miller recently attended the parole hearing of a woman who has been in MCI-Framingham for 22 years after committing "a serious crime," in Miller's words. The volunteers' job is not to relitigate the women's pasts.

"We're there to help them, mentor them, be a friend, and help them if and when they get out of prison, help them make that transition," Miller said.

The woman has received educational certificates from Boston University, Babson College, and MIT. She leads the prison's Alcoholics Anonymous program, works with service dogs, and faithfully attends religious services. She has held multiple jobs behind bars, including cleaning and hairdressing.

"It's opened our eyes to what these incarcerated women are going through, and how the people we've met with have really made an effort to improve their lives and become better people," Miller said.

She and Jacobs went to one of the women's graduations. They send her emails and cards. She doesn't get many visitors, so she's happy to hear from them.

"When you meet them, and you see they're a person," Jacobs said, "and when you get to know them and their background, and they tell you a little bit more about themselves and a little bit where they came from, and their family life, and how they grew up. I think that's where compassion comes in, understanding."