In the fall of 2013, a small group of Clay County ladies began meeting, planning and praying to begin a pro-life presence in their area.

Octavio Ramirez, 18, is a dreamer in more ways than one. Octavio is a student at Southwestern Illinois College, where he is studying to be a civil engineer.

It was no coincidence that an Incarceration Forum billed as “A Catholic Response to Mass Incarceration” was held the same weekend and in the same city as the annual Congress of the American Correctional Association.