After serving 14½ years in incarceration, I walked out into a world that had moved on without me. A smartphone — something most people don't think twice about — felt like foreign territory. Setting up a phone number, accessing an online form, connecting to Wi-Fi: the simplest things became walls between me and a normal life.

 I  walked out of prison to a sentence of silence.

That struggle opened my eyes. Reentry begins with connection — and without a way to communicate, independence is impossible. If I struggled this hard, I knew countless others were facing the same barriers with even less support.

So I started NUconnextions: to make sure no returning citizen ever feels disconnected, lost, or left behind. It started with phones, and it's growing into transportation, housing, and the full support network people need to rebuild with dignity.

— Johnny B, Founder