My name is Terry Olson and I am a proud 2016 GNIP exoneree. I first attended the Innocence Network Conference in 2018. Now, I invite you to join me in donating to the Great North Innocence Project’s campaign to send more freed and exonerated clients and their support people to this important event. I know firsthand how transformative the experience can be.
Attending the Conference changed my attitude and my belief that I was the only innocent person that was in prison. Each of us who were wrongfully convicted felt this way at some point during our incarceration. At the Conference, I was overwhelmed by meeting so many others that went through the same experience as me. I was able to share my experience and learned of all the similarities we shared. It helped me to know that I was no longer alone, that others had experienced the same darkness, the same emptiness, and the same desperate feelings that you pile on yourself during the nightmares that were bestowed upon us.
Being able to talk to so many other freed and exonerated people was a truly healing time for me, a healing that every innocent person should have a chance to experience.
There were also several seminars that helped me a great deal in learning to adapt to a world that had changed in so many ways during my incarceration. As you might imagine, even just being able to communicate normally with people was a whole new experience for me. The Conference had several classes that taught me ways to re-enter into the society that we, formerly incarcerated innocent people, left behind.
One of the sessions that helped me most was The Moth storytelling series. It taught me how to tell a story about one of my experiences from my incarceration. The series even enabled me to shed my fear of this new life that I'd missed out on and tell this story on stage in front of the entire Network. It was a humbling experience that helped me adapt in so many ways. I will never forget it and hold it close in my heart to this day.
Going to the Conference is something no client of the Great North Innocence Project should miss. It gave me the confidence I needed to re-enter society with my head up and my feet running, rather than into seclusion. Last week I personally made a gift to GNIP, I hope you will join me in giving other clients of GNIP a healing experience that can help them move forward and release them from a past that was no fault of their own.
Thank you for all of the help you've given me, and it's my hope that you will help more wrongfully convicted people as well.