As the lead singer for the Tried by Fire Outreach Singers, Bonita Simmons gave solo performances in women's prisons and jails from 2000 to 2023.

She sang to the women inmates, gave inspirational speeches about new beginnings and shared the hardships she went through, such as domestic violence. Songs included “Through the Storm,” by gospel singer Yolanda Adams.

Simmons said numerous women would write her letters after she visited. They usually thanked her for her performance and asked if Simmons knew of any place for them to stay after their release.

This, she said, motivated her to start a nonprofit, Tried by Fire Inc., dedicated to helping women post-incarceration.

After prison, many people have trouble accessing housing, employment, parental custody and transportation – all of which make it hard to reenter society successfully.

Following many years of building relationships, gathering a team of supporters and spreading Simmons’ vision, My Sister’s House opened in New Bern in 2023. The home is dedicated to supporting reentry. “Our goal is lowering the recidivism rate by bringing support services to the ladies,” Simmons said.

The year after My Sister’s House opened, Lorraine Yaeger, a recently retired New York children’s librarian from Connecticut, who moved to Pamlico and had been serving in the county’s jail ministry since 2013, started to have similar concerns and Bayboro’s clerk, Susan Kachur, connected her with Simmons.

Yaeger, who has worked at My Sister’s House since she met Simmons, now is leading the plans for The INN at Pamlico, a house dedicated not just to reentry, but also to rehabilitation.

Yaeger said that the house is about fulfilling the housing gap. “A home is so important. That safe place, that sanctuary at the end of the day, that place where you're safe,” she said. “That's missing here in Pamlico. It is totally missing for women that need a new beginning.”

Pamlico County is home to one of North Carolina’s state prisons which is called the Pamlico Correctional Institution; it is only for men.

The Inn at Pamlico will be under the umbrella of the Tried by Fire organization, which is raising funds and hoping to close on a property across from the Bayboro courthouse by the end of August.

The nonprofit also aims to have houses at other locations in the future, such as Simmons’ hometown of Kinston, North Carolina.

“I didn't think that it was something that only I could do,” Simmons said. “I believe that what was placed in me could be duplicated.”

Plans for the My Sister’s House started brewing many years ago, when Simmons became connected with Mike Williams, the then-executive director of Habitat for Humanity for Craven County. He called her in 2018 to say someone wanted to donate a house to Habitat for Humanity, but the organization doesn’t receive houses and sell them; they build them. So Williams talked with the donor about giving the house to Tried by Fire.

The house was decrepit, but Simmons said she saw its potential and felt good about it. From 2018 to 2022, the organization built a team of volunteers that included grant writers, general contractors and project managers.

The house, which was re-built from 2022-2023, is owned by the nonprofit. Through volunteer work, grants and donations, Tried by Fire has never had to make a mortgage payment. And partnerships with organizations like churches provide funds for the women to buy things such as undergarments.

For the faith-based organization, Yaeger said the goal is for the women to have a relationship with God, but it’s not mandatory or forced on anyone.

Elizabeth, a resident at My Sister’s House who declined to provide her last name, said that because of the resources, learning opportunities, safety and love, it’s a good place to get back on your feet.

“It's like to mature again,” she said.

The organization provides the residents with counseling, and teaches them how to budget and secure employment through NC Works, where Simmons is the Craven Community College Job Placement Specialist for the Craven-Pamlico Re-entry Council. Normally, the residents, who have 30 days upon being released from prison to find a job, pay 30% of their income as rent, which Simmons describes as paying forward for future residents.

The house implements an open-door policy, which allows the residents to come and go as they wish, embodying their freedom. However, in accordance with individualized probation rules, there is a curfew of 11 p.m. during the week and 12 a.m. on the weekend, with exceptions for night shift jobs.

“Having the reentry program is a godsend,” said Ashley Fulcher, a New Bern native who has struggled with long-term addiction. Fulcher said My Sister’s House is supportive and full of love, which makes it stable, unlike other programs.

“The ability to come and go as you please and to still live life and learn how to live life and cope with life's terms, it's still there,” she said. “But having somebody in the house that is intimate with your daily routine and what's going on personally to help you give you that nudge in the right direction, that's accountability.”

The residents also have a sign-in-sign-out sheet to know where they are if something happens or if they're being “productive with their day,” Fulcher said.

Yaeger said, “The whole point is we're teaching you basic life skills to become a productive member of society with your own apartment, job, transportation, ability to feed yourself and pay your bills.”

For The INN at Pamlico, adding a rehabilitation focus broadens county outreach efforts, Yaeger said, pointing to the prevalence of drugs and an “unprotected coastline.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Research shows that an estimated 65% percent of the United States prison population has an active SUD (substance use disorder). Another 20% percent did not meet the official criteria for an SUD, but were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime.”

Jon Amundson is a longtime Greenville, North Carolina, resident who moved to Pamlico after he went to prison and recovered from opioid addiction through a recovery program in Carteret County. He said it's his obligation to pave the way for people striving to get their life back on track.

As a volunteer for Hope Clinic and a supporter of The INN at Pamlico, Amundson is going to school to become a certified drug and alcohol counselor. He said he plans to provide his services to the county because the majority of people in prison suffer from substance use disorder and Pamlico has one of the highest overdose rates in the state and the highest rate on the coast, after Tyrrell County, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health data from 2024.

“Humans, we make mistakes, and people can change,” he said. “I've been down those roads. I dealt with the addiction and alcoholism. I got in trouble with the law before, but look what I'm doing in my community.”

Blannie “BJ” Cahoon, who was born and raised in the county and suffered from long-term addiction, started to get involved in the community through church. Yaeger recognized this and asked for his support in the building of The INN at Pamlico.

Cahoon, who works in predictive maintenance at the Nutrien Aurora Phosphate Mine, is in the process of starting an addiction recovery facility and separately partnering to build a transition house for men down the street from The INN at Pamlico. Cahoon said Sanford Ropp, his partner in the housing project, who he met through Yaeger, has numerous acres of land that he will donate to this cause. Cahoon and Simmons both said that they’ll support one another in this endeavor.

Even though the process of recovery was hard for Amundson and Cahoon, having people in their life who supported them, made it less difficult. They both acknowledge that it’s harder for people who don’t have that support because of institutional setbacks and social pressures.

“Having all these cards stacked against them makes it difficult, and it's easy for somebody to just start selling drugs again to make some money, because it's quick money and I can have a place to sleep,” Amundson said.

Cahoon agreed and said, “Jail is not a fix all. Jail is to put them in there because they've done something wrong, but it's not fixing the problem.”

Amundson added, “There's still other things that need to be addressed, but I believe that having somewhere to lay your head at night, a safe environment, is a really good start.”

Cahoon’s wife, Sabra Cahoon, said people are a product of their  environment. “If you're going back to the same environment, it doesn't matter how clean you are, chances are something is gonna rub off on you,” she said. “People need that accountability, and that's what the inn would be for women coming out of prison.”

Chris Davis, Pamlico County’s sheriff, shared those sentiments in a letter of support for The INN at Pamlico. “I often recognize offenders need more than sitting in our jail, only to be released into the same situations that will land them right back here,” he wrote.

Tamara Tadlock, a resident of My Sister’s House from Elizabeth City, said her mom and dad were on drugs when she was young in the ’80s and she started selling weed at age 12 to pay for food and bills and to keep the house warm for her siblings and herself.

“I’ve always been a provider and giver,” she said as she recounted the time she tried to save her mother’s house from being sold after her mom was in the hospital with cancer and didn’t keep up with her property taxes. Tadlock said she wrote a “bad check” and was arrested and locked up for two years in prison for forgery.

Tadlock, who has been with the program for a few months, said that Simmons and the house have already done so much for her, including helping her secure employment. She said she’s never had anyone believe in her or give her a chance, until the nonprofit “opened up their heart to me to give me anything and everything that I need to make it,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Sabra Cahoon, who never dealt with addiction and had a healthy home and upbringing, said that she sought understanding through the experience and stories of others, including her husband and family.

“I don't think you could find a single person in Pamlico County who's either been born and raised here or has moved here, who has not been affected by someone in their family by drugs or prison,” she said.

Drugs have flooded every community, Fulcher said “No matter where you come from, it's a problem and people want to shove it under the rug or push em’ out of the neighborhood and say ‘I don't want them to bring down my property value,’” she said. “But they need to fix this problem and houses like this help that.”

Shawna Marquardt, who grew up in the county and met Yaeger through jail ministry, said she struggled to reestablish a relationship with and custody of her kids over the years due to addiction and prison.

When it comes to drugs, she said, “You love to hate it and hate to love it.”

Marquardt, who has been sober for four years and speaks to her kids now, met her husband, Charlie Marquardt, in Narcotics Anonymous. “We need a place to rebuild family,” he said during a “hard hat” fundraiser for The INN at Pamlico. Volunteers stood near the future site of the inn in hard hats and construction vests to generate excitement about the location.

The future site for The INN at Pamlico is across the street from the Bayboro courthouse, a strategic location.

“We barely have sidewalks in Pamlico County,” Yaeger said. “Where could you put a house where ladies don't have transportation? They need to get somewhere to buy their own food, get to doctors and get to their probation officer.”

Unlike the other projects, The INN at Pamlico hasn’t received donated land or a house.

Tried by Fire made an earnest money payment of $5,000 on the 0.7 acres of land for the site.  Originally, the goal was to be accepted for a loan by the North Carolina Housing Financing Agency to purchase the land in the full amount of $50,000 and to start building the house. The application was denied. But “one way or the other, the inn is going to be built,” Simmons said.

Currently, the organization has raised about $43,500 out of $45,000 needed to buy the land. It plans to close on the property by Aug. 30 and for the process of raising funds and building the house to not take more than two years, a timeline similar to My Sister’s House in New Bern.

Simmons said she’s hopeful that as a nonprofit, they’ll be able to apply for utility reimbursement.

“We really want the community to be involved,” BJ Cahoon said. “No task is too small. … Many hands make light work.”

“Pamlico County does not have a rehab facility, homeless shelter, domestic violence, protective shelter, or a half-way house of any sort. Housing alone is an issue in our county, let alone housing that provides services and resources for people who need them. Our jail should not be a substitute for these homes. Our jail can be a starting point, if the offenders are willing, but our county needs better solutions for people once they are released. My hope is this home will provide that,” Sheriff Davis added.

Yaeger said The INN at Pamlico will be “a home for those who need a new beginning full of love, hope and opportunity to become the person that you always wanted to be.”

Donate and become a vital part of growing a visual and written history of the county.

Down in the County has its own Instagram page! Check us out @downinthecounty