Flashback to the beginning of SOS…

It wasn’t a big launch. It wasn’t even clear when it started. It was me (Ms. B, Ofc. Erickson, CM Erickson, CPD WOOC Erickson, that bi*ch, “HEY CO!”) in facilities, begging for a yellow dry erase marker because there’s “no budget.” It was coworkers and me buying our own supplies because waiting for the big machine to approve markers wasn’t cutting it.

It was guys eyeing me up, weighing whether to assault me, and then watching their faces change when they realized I wasn’t there to check a box — I actually cared. It was the a-ha moments, the first time they felt someone believed in them. It was the relief of using a real pen instead of a seg pen.

It was the little hacks: folding paper back and forth until you could tear a jagged “scissor” cut because actual scissors weren’t allowed. It was trying to convince security that knitting needles and yarn weren’t going to take down the facility, while at the same time finding leftover yarn at my grandparents’ house after they passed. Two worlds that had no reason to connect — except they did.

It was digging through old desks and supply closets like a raccoon, finding discarded scraps to reuse. It was asking for forgiveness more than permission. It was posting on social media because the public only ever sees the negative stories about corrections — nobody gets to see the good.

Scrappy. Frustrating. Sometimes funny. But SOS grew out of that grind: knowing when to push, when to accept “no,” and when to find a new back door.

That’s really where it began.