FT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM (NORTHEAST):
EULESS WOMAN HONORED FOR HELPING INMATES
(The award was the TEXAS GOVERNOR’S 5TH ANNUAL CRIMINAL
JUSTICE VOLUNTEER SERVICE AWARDS)
The last thing Jake Pichnarcik expected from his time in Hutchins State Jail was
a new lease on life. By the time Pichnarcik had served his two-year sentence for
possession of a controlled substance, he was a senior tutor who had developed
a guidebook for math tutors and a children’s math program. “The program made
major changes in those guys’ lives,” said Pichnarcik, 35, a freshman at Texas A&M
University. “She (Smith) is extremely caring. She takes people at face value,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter where they are from or where they have been. She takes them from
the ground up.”
That kind of success story helped persuade officials at the Restorative Justice Ministry
to give the 60-year-old Smith the Governor’s Religious Volunteer of the Year award
yesterday during its annual convention in Houston.
“God is doing some amazing things,” said chaplain Mark Pickett, program administrator
in chaplaincy services for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Pickett nominated
Smith for the honor.