On Jan. 19, Georgetown University honored Paula Thompson, president of a nonprofit that helps incarcerated and newly released individuals rebuild their lives, with the 2025 John Thompson Jr. Legacy of a Dream Award at the John F. Kennedy Center.
The Legacy of a Dream Award identifies emerging leaders who are working to solve key issues in Washington, DC. Georgetown established the award to deepen its engagement within the city and recognize the award’s namesake, John Thompson Jr., the legendary Georgetown head basketball coach emeritus, social justice advocate and DC native.
Paula Thompson received the award as part of the 21st Let Freedom Ring Celebration, an annual event hosted by Georgetown and the Kennedy Center that honors Dr. King’s life and legacy.
This year’s celebration featured a musical performance by Christopher Jackson, a Grammy-Award-winning composer who starred as George Washington in the musical Hamilton; Esperanza Spalding, a Grammy-award-winning jazz singer and producer; and the NEWorks Voices of America and NEWorks House Band. Actor Taye Diggs, known for his role in the musical Rent, hosted the event.
Georgetown Interim President Robert M. Groves (left) with Thompson (center) and the family of the award’s namesake, John Thompson Jr.Photo by Elman Studio.Musical Director Nolan Williams Jr. (second from left) opens the event with the premiere of his work, “Selma@60.”Photo by Elman Studio.The event’s performers join Williams (third from left) on stage for the final song of the evening. Photo by Elman Studio.
Thompson, president and CEO of Voices for a Second Chance, is a criminal justice reform advocate and community leader who transformed a small volunteer-led nonprofit into an organization that reaches nearly 2,000 returning citizens every year.
In her 12-year tenure, Thompson has created a continuum of care from inside prison walls to a warm landing pad in the nonprofit’s home-like headquarters, where clients find a pathway to stability and building their new lives. She also created wraparound support programs that serve the children of incarcerated parents, gender-specific trauma counseling, support groups, mobile outreach to homeless encampments and neighborhoods, and a 33-week program that trains clients to advocate for themselves and their communities.
For Thompson, her measure of success is simple: It’s about the individual’s success. Holding down a stable job. Mending strained family relationships. Moving into an apartment. Finding their footing. Finding hope.
“When you’re incarcerated, you become a number in a system and you lose all of your humanity,” she said. “You adapt to not being human because you’re not being seen. So it takes a while for the humanity of someone to show up again. That’s important in the work that we do: for people to feel human again.”
Thompson received the award from Georgetown Interim President Robert M. Groves on the Kennedy Center stage.
“Tonight, Paula joins more than 20 past honorees of this award — each one has kept alive the spirit of Dr. King and the commitment of Coach Thompson,” Groves said. “We celebrate these leaders now to remind ourselves of the hard-fought victories and also to recognize the work that remains to bolster the rights and freedoms of people across our country and around the world.”
A New Approach to Reentry
Thompson stands outside the entrance to Voices for a Second Chance in Washington, DC.
Thompson joined Voices for a Second Chance (VSC) in 2012.
Prior to VSC, she had worked as a federal lobbyist and policy advocate for housing, economic development and social justice issues. She led fundraising and communications for the DC nonprofit Samaritan Inns, and national development campaigns for Voices for America’s Children, a nonprofit that advocates for children and their well-being.
But in Voices for a Second Chance, she found something different, something she had been looking for.
“I just saw so much potential. I saw this as a diamond that had not been buffed,” she said. “I wanted to be in a space where I could work with individuals to help [them] see themselves beyond their circumstances. They’re more than their crimes. They’re more than the choices they’ve made.”
At the time, the 43-year-old nonprofit had been helping incarcerated individuals in the DC jail stay connected with their families. Thompson saw an opportunity for more.
She began working inside the jail, meeting with the incarcerated and learning their stories and needs. She looked at the resources available in DC, where the holes were, and how her organization could improve it. She worked with experts and local leaders. And she invited individuals who had been formerly incarcerated to work with her, so they could share their lived experiences with clients and offer solutions.
With her team, Thompson created a four-phased approach that meets clients inside the jail or prison, and then creates a step-by-step program for them once they’re released.
Voices for a Second Chance offers access to immediate resources like Social Security cards, toiletries, health insurance and temporary housing. In one program, clients are provided with 30-day hotel stays and intensive case management to get their feet back on the ground.
From there, case managers work with clients to find long-term housing, peer support groups, job training and rental and furniture assistance.
“She focuses on the people and not just the problem,” said Michelle Sermon, clinical supervisor at VSC. “It’s about how do we make people whole?
The last step helps clients find their voice and advocate for themselves — “force multipliers” who can share their stories and best practices with their communities, said Jeremy Wiley, president of VSC’s board of directors.
“We’re providing a service, but we’re also building confidence,” Thompson said. “I felt very strongly that this gave us an opportunity to teach people how to be informed advocates. To not just scream about a problem or complain about an issue, [but] to be informed about it, and then offer solutions so they can be an intricate part of that.”
Force Multipliers at Work
Thompson with Trent (right) at Voices for a Second Chance’s headquarters.
Recently, Voices for a Second Chance started a podcast, Solutions from the Yard, hosted by three former clients and prison reform advocates.
Dietrich Trent is one of the hosts. He had been arrested at age 16 and released 25 years later. He remembers walking into the door of Voices for a Second Chance, nervous and unsure of what to expect. He remembers how Thompson stepped in during his first screening and asked if he was OK.
“It was hard for me to trust because I’ve been away. I’m only going to trust my family. But she broke that with me. She broke that seal with me right then and there through her first introduction,” he said. “She gave me the blueprint of how to transform my life.”
Now, in addition to the podcast, Trent works as a community development manager for DC Central Kitchen, where he helps men and women being released from prison find a second chance too. “She’s a trailblazer that’s going to go the extra mile not only for you but for the cause,” Trent said of Thompson. “She knows it’s not going to help just you — it’s going to help someone else.”
Future of Voices for a Second Chance
Thompson is honored alongside family members of the award’s namesake, John Thompson Jr., on Jan. 19. Photo by Elman Studio.Thompson with Morgan Faulkner (right), community relations manager of the Washington Commanders. The team honored Thompson with the 2024 Inspire Change Changemaker Award for her work.
In receiving the award, Thompson said she looks forward to continuing to elevate the mission of Voices for a Second Chance in partnership with Georgetown.
“It’s an opportunity to not only elevate the values of VSC that are so linked with Georgetown’s values in this work, but all the other tenants that go along with reentry work,” she said. “It’s about community building. It’s about family. It’s about how do we invest in those entities that we say are supposed to be equitable across the board? I think a partnership with Georgetown working closely to create ways for us to do that and be a model for that.”
Thompson has also been active in advocating for successful reintegration on a broader level. In 2016, she founded the Reentry Action Network (RAN), a coalition of more than 30 organizations that provide reentry services in DC.
Thompson hopes that Voices for a Second Chance’s model can be replicated across the country.
“We give people hope,” Thompson said. “I know that’s what we do. We give people hope.”
Let Freedom Ring Celebration
Nolan Williams, Jr. opens the event with the premiere of “Selma@60,” a song he wrote marking the 60th anniversary of the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery. Photo by Elman Studio.
Thompson’s award was part of an annual event first hosted by Georgetown and the Kennedy Center that honors Dr. King through a musical tribute.
“The Let Freedom Ring concert — and this award — connect the struggles of Dr. King’s time to the work we’re engaged in today to build a more just and fair society,” said Groves during the event. “I hope our program enlivens you with a spirit of hope about this community, this city, this nation and our shared future.”
Nolan Williams, Jr., the program’s long-time musical director, opened the event with the premiere of “Selma@60,” a song marking the 60th anniversary of the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.
Photo by Elman Studio.
In discussing the lyrics after the performance, Williams said, “At the end of the day, when all is said and done, the moral arc of our universe will bend towards what is just, what is true and what is right if we keep our hands to the plow.”
The tribute included performances by Christopher Jackson, known for his role in Hamilton and HBO’s And Just Like That; and Esperanza Spalding, who recently released an album with Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento.
(From left to right) Christopher Jackson and Esperanza Spalding performed at the event and actor Taye Diggs hosted it.
To close out this evening’s concert, all the performers joined Nolan onstage to perform his work, “Birmingham Letter,” inspired by Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” They stood together onstage belting out the lyrics, “Injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.”
In his closing remarks, Diggs said he hopes the event inspires audience members to carry on Dr. King’s work.
“I hope this concert is a reminder that the dream Dr. King shared with the world more than six decades ago is meant to be active and alive among us. It needs our hope, our work and our commitment if it is to become fully realized. As Dr. King repeated in his iconic speech, ‘Now is the time.’”
