Three Hundred Wednesdays

Seven years ago, retirement had given Jeff Bauer a new restful life. A life he had every reason to keep exactly as it was. One day he felt a nudge he could not explain, and it led him to minister in prison.

A Nudge He Could Not Shake

Jeff Bauer was sitting in a pew at Grace Church when he watched a video that would ultimately change his path moving forward. A man named Cary Sanders was on the screen, describing an organization called JUMPSTART SC. Jeff watched, nodded to himself, and thought it was nice that other people would go into prison to teach them about Christ. While at home, the feeling the video left with him would not leave. All week long, a nudge stayed with Jeff until he could not ignore it any longer. He found the video again, found contact information, and made the call that started everything.

Walking Through the Yard

Jeff went to an informational meeting at Pelham, reluctant at first. Eventually Jeff found himself sitting across from a chaplain at Perry Correctional Institution, the prison closest to where he lived. Out of the things discussed in that meeting, Jeff recalls the chaplain mentioning to him not to wear cologne as it could trigger some of the men inside, and he remembers thinking to himself how odd he thought that was. 

On his first day, he had to walk through the entire prison yard just to reach the gym where class was held. There was no shortcut, no side entrance, and every step reminded him he was about to go into a room of men who he had never met and did not know why they were there. He walked in assuming the men may resent an outsider like him who they may think is just a man pretending to want to help them. Instead to his surprise, the men came toward him with wide smiles, they shook his hand and thanked him for coming. That moment changed everything Jeff thought he knew about the incarcerated. 

Like Clockwork

What Jeff found inside that prison gym was not chaos. It was order, discipline, and a kind of leadership he did not expect to find behind bars. The class was run by a man who has been incarcerated around forty-five years, a former military man who runs every session with precision. Jeff describes the class running like an outfit in the military, organized down to the smallest detail. Jeff believes this leader would make anyone proud of how tightly the class holds together, year after year. That kind of structure is built by men who have chosen to commit and take ownership of something, even inside a place designed to strip ownership away. 

Men Jeff Would Hire in a Heartbeat

Jeff spent his career running a business, and he knows what integrity looks like when he sees it. He says plainly that some of the men he has met at Perry are people he would have hired without hesitation if he still had a company to run. Their character, their honesty, their work ethic inside that room rivals anyone Jeff worked alongside on the outside. 

Some of Jeff's closest friendships now belong to men who will never leave Perry. They are serving life sentences for crimes, men who may receive parole. And still, Jeff calls them among his closest friends. That is the fruit of showing up, week after week, and the ability to see the men as not being defined by their past but who they are in Christ.  

Seven Years, Three Hundred Wednesdays

That was seven years ago. Jeff has shown up almost every single week since, about three hundred visits and counting. Like the majority of other inside volunteers, Jeff agrees that the two hours spent in prison each week are the best two hours of his week. On the outside, among close friends, people build walls. They protect themselves and filter what they say in fear of being judged. Inside Perry, Jeff found something he calls rare: men with no filter at all and want to share what they have been through. In seven years, only one man ever told Jeff he should not have been convicted. Everyone else Jeff has met have owned their past but are moving forward in their new life in Christ. Inside the class, the men are learning how to live as individuals who are not defined by their past, as they are forgiven by God and shouldn’t live in their past identity or shame.  

One man in Jeff's group, around seventy-three years old, told him plainly that if he were not in prison, he would be dead. He fully believes that the life he was living would have killed him. Jeff has never known how to fully process a statement like that, a man so honest with himself that he can name prison as the place God used to save his life. 

Forgiveness that Changes How Men See Themselves

Ask Jeff what he has learned about God from his time at Perry, and he will tell you it is forgiveness. Not the version people talk about on the outside but the kind that changes how a person walks through a room. The men Jeff sits with do not walk in with their heads down in shame, but they speak about their past openly. They carry real regret, but they also carry the certainty that they are right with God. Jeff calls that one of the most impactful things he has ever witnessed, watching men who committed crimes stand secure in grace they know is real. 

Jeff believes the men on the inside know scripture better than he does. They can cite it on nearly any topic. Nobody makes them attend to class and nobody forces them to open a Bible. They choose it, week after week, and Jeff says he would defy anyone to sit in that room and call it fake. Jeff went to Perry for the men and that was the whole plan at the start. He did not fully know what a volunteer was supposed to do that first year. He simply went, week after week, to give his time to men who needed someone to show up. 

Somewhere along the way, the plan flipped. Jeff will tell you, and so will every volunteer he serves alongside, that they get more out of these Wednesdays than the men do. Jeff had no idea his own faith would deepen because of a class he was there to lead. He had no idea his relationship with the Lord would grow stronger inside a prison gym than almost anywhere else in his life. Jeff calls it a win win, and he means every word of it. 

The Same Book

Jeff teaches Purpose Driven Life, the same book, year after year. He admits his own copy upstairs is layered with different colors of underlining because every year the discussion reveals something new. The book never changes. The men do. Their combined experiences shape every conversation, and Jeff says he is constantly underlining a sentence he never noticed before because someone in the room connected it to a piece of their story he had never heard. 

Ninety-five men showed up on the first day of class this year. Nobody at Perry has to run a promote the JUMPSTART SC class. As Jeff puts it, everybody already knows about JUMPSTART by now. Men who have never sat through a single session still know the name. Jeff has watched other states try to build that same momentum that JUMPSTART SC has. He has traveled to Georgia to help run informational meetings, standing in front of inmates who have never heard of JUMPSTART, trying to convince them the program is worth their time and that it truly works. Jeff hopes one day every state JUMPSTART is in will reach that same point, where the reputation walks ahead of the volunteers. 

Due Diligence Done On His Knees

Since 2019, Jeff and his wife Shelley have given generously to Restoration Village. When asked why, Jeff explains it simply. He never had to wonder whether JUMPSTART SC was really what it claimed to be. Every Wednesday for seven years was his due diligence. He has seen the transformation firsthand, week after week, in the men sitting across from him. 

Jeff's giving is not separate from his Wednesdays. It is an extension of them. He gives because he has watched what a second chance actually builds, a father who comes home whole, a mentor who used to be mentored, a man who once could not name a single person behind bars and now cannot imagine his life without them. Every gift Jeff and Shelley send toward Restoration Village becomes another door for a man like the ones Jeff sits with every week. 

Jeff is now working to build a long-term giving structure so his own family can carry that same commitment forward. He wants his children to learn what he has learned, so that serving something bigger than yourself matters more than anything money alone can offer. Jeff believes young people need more than an inheritance. They need to learn how to give their time, not just their resources, and to understand there is a whole world outside their own lives worth stepping into. 

A Purpose that Outlasts Retirement  

Jeff is retired now. What Jeff has come to believe instead is that God still has a purpose for his life, and that purpose is not passive. It is an obligation Jeff carries into every Wednesday he walks back through those gates. Jeff hopes that someday, his grandchildren will read his story and understand what mattered most to him. Not a title, not a career, not free time in retirement. A calling to stay in step with what God wanted for his life, and the courage to answer that nudge he felt seven years ago in a church pew. 

When Jeff describes the void that came with retirement, he is honest about it. He spent decades responsible for a company, payroll, and a team of people who depended on him. Then, almost overnight, that responsibility was gone. Jeff found his answer not in a hobby but in a calling, a weekly obligation to walk in step with what God wanted for his life. He believes every person, retired or not, carries that same obligation. The question is only whether they choose to answer it. 

Two Ways to Answer the Same Nudge

Jeff's story is not one calling. It is two, lived out at the same time. He shows up in the gym at Perry every Wednesday, and he gives so more Wednesdays like his can happen for someone else.

Will you be the reason another Wednesday changes a life? JUMPSTART SC needs volunteers willing to walk through the gate the way Jeff did, unsure at first, and willing to let that unfamiliar room become the best two hours of their week. Give today at: https://jumpstartsc.org/give/

Jeff's story started with a video and a feeling he could not shake. Your story could start today. Join JUMPSTART SC in walking alongside men and women preparing for a second chance and become part of the transformation happening every single week at Perry Correctional and beyond.  Become a Volunteer today at: https://jumpstartsc.org/volunteer/