Eleanor Marsh HOUSTON- Generational Change Inc. was recently established to help aid and assist the children of parents that are incarcerated by mentoring, teaching, and providing life skills to help them succeed.  Based on statistics, children of incaraerated parents will face extreme challenges in their future.  Some of these challenges include a future that is much more likely to find them incarcerated, feelings of social stigma, embarrassment, and isolation from their peers, visitations with incarcerated parents in anxiety-filled prison meeting rooms and increased potential for depression, lower grades, among other issues.

These statistics and challenges as well as a personal life changing experience, inspired Executive Director Eleanor E. Marsh, to create Generational Change Inc. Beyond the Bars.  Marsh, herself was once incarcerated for a short period of time.  At the time, she was a very successful business woman and single mother who ended wound up having to depend on family and friends to help raise and care for her children while she was away. 

While in prison, she made an effort to continue to give instruction and advice to her children so they would not end up in the same circumstances.  She calls this parenting from the inside. Her faith was strengthened and she made a commitment to God, her children, and herself that when she was released she would not only never put herself in a predicament like that again, but she would dedicate her life to ensuring her children had every opportunity to succeed, along with dedicating her life to helping youth of other inmates who without GCI would not be afforded the same type of support.  Since completing her time, she has built a successful enterprise consisting of a consulting firm, pharmacy, wellness spa and  real estate business.  Her children have gone on to graduate from high school and college and are pursuing entrepreneurship as well. To learn more about GCI, visit www.gcibeyondthebar.org.