On a sunny day in September, Timothy Cosme is getting ready to walk out of the Fulton County Jail as a free man.
He was transferred to the facility to close a case he still had pending after being released from prison.
“I’m coming out of Jackson, so I still have my pants from the department of corrections,” Cosme said.
Cosme didn’t leave like that, though.
Jail staff took a quick look at him before disappearing to a room in the back and returning with a brand-new navy blue, long sleeve polo, khaki pants and black leather boots.
“It’s kind of cool to get something I can probably go out to eat in right away,” Cosme said. “My family’s coming to pick me up, so it’s nice to not be in uniform and get some clothes.”
When Natalie Ammons started her job as a spokesperson for the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office a little over a year ago, she quickly noticed that there was a need among people like Cosme.
“I was aware that sometimes when people are released, the clothes that they come in with aren’t suitable for them to be released in,” Ammons said.
“It can be because they were soiled, you know, just dirty. They might have been wet, just various reasons. We also get people from Grady [Memorial Hospital] and they only come in a gown, and so, when it’s time for them to be released, it’s a challenge to release them in something clean and warm.”
So, Ammons approached Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat with the idea of partnering with Atlanta-based nonprofit Caring For Others, which she had already been volunteering with for several years, and they were all in.
“I got with the team here at the jail, and they designated this space,” she said, pointing around a room past a squeaky security door on the right-hand side of the Fulton County Jail. “There were some file cabinets and different things in here, but they cleared everything out and painted the floor. And that’s when we got the first round of clothes from Caring for Others.”
The room is called “Ray of Hope” in memory of the founder of the nonprofit’s late husband, Ray Shockley, who was known to be a very sharp dresser.
At first, most of the clothes they offered were sweatpants and hoodies, but now the room is mostly filled with suits and dress clothes that can be worn to church, school or even a job interview.
Ammons said there are also hats and accessories, so people can leave jail feeling good about themselves.
“What I said was this could potentially be the difference in them going out, re-offending next week and coming right back or them never coming back here again just to be able to leave in something clean,” Ammons said.
Detention Officer Bridgett Dzah-Franks has been overseeing the room’s operations since it opened about six months ago.
“I had one [person] say, ‘I wear a 42,'” Franks said. “No, you don’t. I put him in a 38×32, and it fit!”
Recently, Franks said she helped dress a man from head-to-toe for a hearing in accountability court whose own clothes had gotten moldy.
“He was so grateful,” Franks said. “He said, ‘I feel good.’ And to get that feeling — I’m getting emotional — but to receive that on this end is unexplainable, but it’s so grateful. And like I tell everybody, I thank them for believing in me to be able to bless somebody else.”
Caring for Others Board of Directors Chair Crystal Khalil, who has been standing next to a rack of clothes, stops Franks to thank her for the work that she’s doing.
“That is life-changing,” Khalil said, “because that energy transfers, and then [the detainees] go out, and they take that energy with them instead of leaving here depressed and confused and frustrated.”
For Khalil, it’s all about impact.
“If you can just help one, right, that’s the most important thing,” she said. “But just to know that they are getting some hope, because hope is lacking, and I’m sure here there’s a deficit of hope!”
The next step is for Ray of Hope to offer women’s clothing, so that female detainees can also transition back into the public without the added stigma of being a former inmate.
But for now, Cosme is just one of several detainees excited to walk out of the Fulton County Jail and enjoy a meal with their family in their new clothes.
