Jill Gollob

Growing up in McLean, Virginia, where most of the kids Jill Gollob went to school with looked like and had similar backgrounds to her, Jill never really heard about criminal justice reform until her junior year in high school. During that year, she watched the movie Dead Man Walking in religion class, and learned about Sister Helen Prejean’s work fighting against the death penalty and humanizing the incarcerated. Ever since, Jill says Sister Helen has been her “Catholic celebrity hero,” adding, “I’ve never been more excited than when I found out Sister Helen had joined the Douglass Project’s Board of Directors!”

At Yale, Jill had the opportunity to volunteer with No Closed Doors, a student-run organization in New Haven that helps homeless and underprivileged (and often formerly incarcerated) members of the New Haven community create resumes and cover letters for job applications. One of her most inspiring moments of volunteering was when Jill helped a man who had just gotten out of prison apply for a construction job. “We worked hard on his resume and application, and he was incredibly proud of himself when he landed the job!”

Jill firmly believes that “discrimination in its many forms is caused by a lack of recognizing the humanity in others,” and that “the only way to fix our broken justice system is to see every person, regardless of race, gender, class, incarceration, etc. as a human being.” She believes wholeheartedly that the Douglass Project’s vision of “a society where every human being is treated with dignity, acknowledged through understanding, and nurtured by compassion” can become a reality.