Visiting Day

A project completed for The Local Magazine for their Prisoner Issue: "Two Sundays a month, Veronica* wakes up before dawn to get ready to go visit her dad. He is incarcerated at Beaver Creek Institution, a federal medium-security prison about 200 km north of Toronto. Veronica is 17, in her final year of high school, and she and her little sister have had the same Sunday visit routine since Veronica was in grade six. They take a bus owned and operated by FEAT, a charitable organization dedicated to empowering and advocating for children of incarcerated parents. The bus is free for Veronica and her sister. Without it, they wouldn’t be able to afford to visit their dad more than a couple of times a year. Derek Reid is the co-founder of FEAT, which he created in 2011 with his daughter Jessica. He’s also the bus driver."