The Latest News

14 February 2010
Posted in News and Updates

Happy Valentine's Day

I heard from Joy yesterday that she had received many Valentine greetings!!  She is so thankful for your support and love.  I hope that you have had a great Valentine's Day.  It is a great time to say thank you to those that we love and to take time to cherish our moments with them.  I know that Joy's day was a bit brighter because of your cards.  We keep her informed of what is happening with Justice for Joy, with facebook and with the donations and activities.  I think an important role of those of us who support Justice for Joy is to continue to support Joy in any way we can.

We hit the 1000 Fan goal on facebook this week!!!  We currently have 1013 fans.  Who would have thought 1 month ago that we would have over a thousand fans?   Keep getting the word out -- social networking is a great way for us to communicate and stay informed!

On the donation front, we received $1085 in checks and paypal transactions this week.  There is a total of $5,761 in the fund after 4 weeks.  We are only 10% of the way to being able to pay for the appeal so please keep sending your ideas for fundraising and please consider donating any amount if you haven't.

I hope that we don't get too much snow on Monday and Tuesday so that we can get together on Tueday night!  I hope to see everyone there.

03 February 2010
Posted in News and Updates

Great Idea.....A Valentine for Our Valentine

I think there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since January 16^th that I haven’t had an email or call from someone who has a great idea for improving the website, getting the word out to the public or offering other ways to help Joy.  Last night, a suggestion was made by a facebook fan that we coordinate a card shower to show Joy our support in a big way for Valentine’s Day.   How appropriate is that?!….Valentine’s Day is the holiday to share your love with your family and friends.  There isn’t a better time to send Joy your love.  Valentine’s Day is a week from Sunday.  We would need to start sending the cards by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, so with the snow coming, I wanted to give everyone a heads up.  Wouldn’t be awesome if everyone sent their support!

Here’s the address.

08-4747
Lancaster County Prison
Drawer C
625 East King Street
Lancaster, PA  17602-3199

31 January 2010
Posted in News and Updates

Learning New Things…..Meeting New People……

I am a glass half full kind of girl.  I am also not used to the role of victim, so for me, this whole situation with Joy and our family has been unreal.  There is no doubt that it has been horrible for Joy and our family.  However, we have learned a lot over the past 15 months. 

Certainly we have learned about our justice system and about the prison world.  We learned there are services so that you can receive collect calls from prison and that there are very specific rules around what you can send to a prisoner and what you can’t send.  Hard to believe but you can’t send a book from your home library…but you can send one from Amazon.

This weekend, we learned about the structure of web design.  So if you are reading this post, we have successfully shown our competence in setting up a blog!

I would say that the thing I have learned the most about is people.  There are a lot of really good people out there.  People have come out to help, support, and care.  Joy’s friends have moved her belongings, written countless letters to support her and donated thousands of dollars prior to the trial.  For me, the day after the trial I sent an SOS out to my friends and 1 hour later we were building a website and starting a facebook group, TOGETHER!   It was so helpful and so caring.  Did they have groceries to buy and things to do with their families?  I suspect so, but I love them dearly for coming to my aid.

“Justice for Joy”, a coalition of Joy’s friends and family, met on January 21st.   It was truly uplifting.  We started by sharing how we know Joy….supporters and friends from church, nurses who worked with Joy, friends from college, former teachers, family…..there were even people there who know people who know Joy!  Everyone had a Joy story to share…..all came together, coalesced by a common cause….Justice for Joy.   

So while I would never want to relive this experience ever again and I would never wish it on my worst enemy—I am so grateful  for meeting new people, learning new skills and for the love of all of our family, friends and supporters.

At the end of the meeting, one of the pastors read from Romans 1-5.  His words resonated with me as I struggle through this challenge.  I hope that you find strength in this passage…

"We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

Now, I want to share some of the discussion from the Justice for Joy meeting held on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. 

 We know that we have three short term goals. 

• Coordinate the writing of letters in support of Joy to the judge for the sentencing.
• Get the truth out about Joy
• Raise donations toward Joy’s appeal

This is a summary of our short term action plan….

Letters of support:

Instructions on how to write the letter of support can be found on this website.  It is important that the focus is on Joy and that the letter conveys specific information about Joy’s positive attributes.  Please consider writing a letter of support.

Getting the story out:

We will continue to add content to the website.  Everyone will spread the story to their friends and co-workers.   We are leveraging the power of the internet and facebook to get the message out.

We have ordered orange bracelets imprinted with “Justice for Joy”.

Orange is such an appropriate color.  Here is what we know about Orange……

Orange also reminds us that Joy is in prison.  Hopefully the bright and powerful nature of the color of our bracelets will attract attention and bring support.

We are exploring other items that can used to increase awareness such as bumper stickers and other items.

Raise donations for Joy’s appeal:

We know we will need thousands of dollars to support Joy’s appeal.  On this evening alone, we raised $850!!!  Many Many Thanks to everyone for your donations.  All donations are valuable to this effort.  We have added a thermometer to the website and established a money goal.

We would like to thank everyone for your support and action!!  The group will meet again in one month.  Let us know at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you are interested in joining the cause.

24 January 2010
Posted in News and Updates

Joy's family and friends are trying hard to stay strong for Joy.  As I am sure you can imagine, it is difficult at times.  However, Joy is staying strong and is so grateful for all the support she is getting from all of you.  Thank you!

We have now added a way for you to subscribe to blog entries on the website.  On the right hand side of this page you will see a link to "Subscribe to Justice for Joy Rss Feed".  Just enter your email address and you will get an email each time we update the blog.

As we near sentencing and after, we will keep all of you posted about the progress of the appeal.

Thank you everyone for your support!