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The Northeast Ohio Community Outreach Project (NEOCOP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that began offering writing workshops to inmates in Northeast Ohio prisons in 2012 with the assistance of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland’s Diocesan Ministry to the Incarcerated. Beginning with a semester of introductory poetry workshops for the men incarcerated at Lorain Correctional Institution, the program has expanded to include creative writing courses in poetry and prose at two other prisons, Grafton Correctional Institution, a men’s facility, and the Northeast Reintegration Center (formerly the Northeast Pre-Release Center), a women’s facility in Cleveland.  Most recently, courses in art and health have been introduced to these facilities.  As the Project expands, it looks to include courses and workshops in other prisons and jails in the area, and to extend its services to homeless shelters, drug and alcohol treatment centers, and other community institutions whose clients can benefit from the transformative power of writing, reading, education, and the arts.

Poetry Notebook (2012): A chapbook from the poets of Lorain Correctional Institution

Songs from Ohio Route 83 (2013): A joint chapbook from the poets of Lorain Correctional Institution and Grafton Correctional Institution