Laure Clemons and her daughters were only a couple of miles from home when they were stopped by a sheriff who was diverting traffic around a terrible accident. Laure’s worst fears were realized when she recognized the back of her husband’s truck among the wreckage. Her husband Jerry, a recovering alcoholic who had been sober for nine years, had chosen to break his sobriety, a decision that would change the course of his life, and the lives of his wife and daughters, forever. While driving under the influence, Jerry had struck another vehicle, killing one of its passengers, injuring another, and sustaining life-threatening injuries himself. Jerry was sentenced to serve a six-year prison sentence, leaving behind Laure and their children to begin a new life parallel to his, but separated by high walls and locked doors.
That fateful day, one of her darkest, led Laure to create Extended Family, a community-based, non-profit organization designed to provide support to other families who were facing the incarceration of a loved one, support that Laure could not find for herself or her daughters at the time. For the past twenty years, her vision of light, Extended Family, has helped thousands of adults and children, those left behind when a family member is incarcerated. Not only did Extended Family help Laure and her daughters heal, Jerry also joined the Extended Family team and is now 22 years sober!
We invite you to this very special Annual Celebration of Life, commemorating twenty years of Extended Family services and programs, on Saturday, March 2, 2024, 6:00pm. We are so grateful to the members of the Fairview Community Church in Centre for allowing us to use their gymnasium for this event. Dinner will be catered by Edna Jennings and entertainment will be provided by the Gadsden State Singers, talented students from Gadsden State Community College under the direction of J. T. Harrell. Also featured, as is tradition at our Annual Celebrations, will be former students, graduates of our Extended Family for Kids (EFK) and Extended Leadership Academy (ELA) programs, to share their stories and the impact Extended Family has had in their lives.
Visit our website, www.extendedfamilyhelp.org, to purchase tickets for our Annual Celebration of Life. Our celebration would not be complete without our friends and constant supporters! We hope you will be able to join us as we look back on twenty wonderful years and look forward to many more exciting years ahead – the best is yet to come!
