By Eliza Kravitz ’24 and Andrew Kornfeld ’24 | Posted March 25, 2021
In April 2020, Kelsey Kauffman ’71 convened a Zoom meeting with criminal justice advocates nationwide. A month into the pandemic, it already was clear that people living and working in the 7,000 jails, prisons, and detention centers across the U.S. were among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Kelsey, a former correctional officer who founded the higher education program at Indiana Women’s Prison, feared that her incarcerated friends and former students were at severe risk of dying from the virus.
After its initial meeting, the group decided to launch a website to honor those who had died and those who likely would die over the course of the pandemic. The effort was named “Mourning Our Losses,” and the online memorial site became public on Memorial Day.