The Last Mile 2025 Annual Report

Dear Friends and Supporters,

In 2010, Chris Redlitz was invited to speak at San Quentin to a group of incarcerated men about business and entrepreneurship. He had no idea that visit would change the course of his life — or the lives of thousands of others. What began as a single conversation became a calling. Chris and his wife, Beverly Parenti, quickly immersed themselves in the realities of incarceration in America, and in 2010, they co-founded The Last Mile with a clear conviction: that people inside prison walls are capable of extraordinary things when given real tools and real opportunity. Their vision was not charity. It was a transformation grounded in skill, preparation, and belief: Teaching marketable skills that result in gainful employment.

Sixteen years later, that vision has a new home. After three years of planning — with Chris playing a central role on the planning committee — we opened the first-of-its-kind Learning Center at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center on March 24, 2026, in partnership with CALCTRA. When Chris and Bev offered me the role of Executive Director in 2024, they handed me something more than a job. They handed me a mission in motion, a community of believers, and the foundation of something built to last. Personally and on behalf of the entire organization, I want to acknowledge Beverly and Chris for the leadership and mentorship they continue to provide. Their work continues to inspire innovation and rehabilitation across the country, and it lives in everything we do.

My father taught me that showing up is 90% of the work. It sounds simple, but I have carried that with me my entire life — and I see it proven true every single day by our students. These are people navigating enormous obstacles just to walk into a classroom, sit down, and do the hard work of learning. They do not have to. They choose to. That choice, made consistently, day after day, is the foundation everything else is built on. It is what I am most proud of, and it is the spirit that runs through every page of this report.

2025 was a year of building — sometimes quietly, sometimes against real headwinds. We deepened our curriculum to meet a labor market that is moving fast, and expanded our PATH framework to include project management, sales, and entrepreneurship alongside web development. A meaningful addition this year was the introduction of a Google Workspace simulator, giving students hands-on experience with the tools they will encounter on day one of any modern job — inside an environment where live internet access is not available. We also continued testing our Service Delivery Platform, the infrastructure that will allow multiple educational partners to deliver instruction within a single secure network at San Quentin. This is still early-stage work, and we are learning as we go — but the potential to reshape how correctional education is delivered at scale is real. None of this happened in a straight line. We made hard decisions about what to prioritize, and our team delivered.

I came to this work through a door that many of our students will recognize. My own history with the justice system is not background noise — it is the source of my clarity about what is at stake. When I walk into a classroom inside a prison, I am not a visitor. I know what it feels like to believe that the opportunities available to other people are not available to you. I also know what it feels like to be proven wrong about that. The Last Mile exists to prove that wrong, at scale, with evidence.

This report tells the story of Alysha Eppard, who walked out of prison in September 2024 and is today building web features for the Indiana Pacers — a role that came to her through skill, discipline, and a partnership between The Last Mile and a team that believed in fair-chance hiring. Alysha’s story is not a miracle. It is a result. It is what happens when someone is given real tools, real preparation, and real support. It is what our 5% recidivism rate looks like in a single human life.

As we move into 2026, we carry the groundwork of this year forward with real momentum. New state partnerships are taking shape. Employer relationships are deepening. And our curriculum is evolving to meet the moment — we are actively working to launch AI curriculum that prepares students for a workforce being reshaped by automation, and developing skilled trades partnerships that will open pathways into industries where demand is high and opportunity is real. Because the economy does not wait, and neither can the people we serve.

None of this is possible without you. Thank you to our funders, partners, volunteers, correctional agency colleagues, and employer champions who show up for this work. Thank you to our staff, who bring both rigor and humanity to everything they do. And most of all, thank you to our students and alumni — past, present, and future — who remind us daily that transformation is not a program outcome. It is a choice. We are honored to be part of the journey.